


STR∀IN

by KimChangRa, ThunderingWaterWitch (Ravenclaw1995)



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V
Genre: (Paleozoic), Burgesstoma, Gen, Ghostrick, Madolche, Mermail, Spellbook/Prophecy, wind-up
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-08
Updated: 2021-02-19
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:55:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 59,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21712585
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KimChangRa/pseuds/KimChangRa, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ravenclaw1995/pseuds/ThunderingWaterWitch
Summary: One day, Sakuragi Yū gets a visitor from another dimension.  The next day, he begins recruiting a special team of Duelists.  The day after that, a daring plan is hatched that could turn the tide of the war against Academia.Seems simple enough, right?… Right?
Comments: 9
Kudos: 14





	1. I

**Author's Note:**

> It really brings my heart joy to work on this collab with Kim. To see my OCs come to life feels pretty surreal to me. I've never did a collaboration with anyone before, so this is new to me. I really hope everyone enjoys this as much as I do. - TWW
> 
> \---
> 
> … as he tries and fails to avoid blushing at the compliment …
> 
> (ahem) So, yeah—some of you may recognize these characters from a prior story of mine. Those are indeed TWW's OCs, which I used for a piece that I did for her birthday. More OCs will be coming along in the future. We promise not to treat them too badly … (ducks under table)
> 
> Having said that, this is completely unfamiliar territory for me, too. It's my first collab ever, and we have our own stories and lives to maintain as well—so our updates will likely be infrequent while we try to hammer out all the minutiae behind the scenes.
> 
> Thanks for your patience, and thanks for reading! Hope you enjoy! – KCR
> 
> Oh—P.S. for obligatory legal … whatever: Yu-Gi-Oh! and Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V are © 1996 and © 2014 by Kazuki Takahashi and the Konami Corporation; all original characters and content herein belong to us.

> _And all you see are the cards that you can play_
> 
> _And you thought you’d get away with these games_
> 
> _And all you see are the cards there in your hand_
> 
> _And you thought that you had everything planned_
> 
> – Feint ft. CoMa, “Snake Eyes”

* * *

I

It was said that a first-time visitor to Maiami City could master the game of _Duel Monsters_ faster by watching a complete stranger play it than by learning the rules on their own. So prevalent was the sport here that the sprawling metropolis had been called the Dueling capital of the world.

No other location in Japan had so many places for kids and adults alike to pick up their Decks and challenge each other for reasons big and small. Passersby would often pause in their goings-on for a few minutes to enjoy the visual spectacle of someone’s latest and greatest combination of cards that, in some way or another, would eventually seal the win. Playing arenas that could have passed for tennis courts, so similar in shape and size were they, were as commonplace here as parks and plazas—and the more advanced of these could be outfitted with the latest in Solid Vision holographic technology, creating battlefields that explored every dimension of the creator’s imagination, from the whimsical to the sinister—or, in the case of the battlefield in which the teenaged boy was currently sitting off to one side, they could call on equal parts of both.

To call _Sweets Island_ a dentist’s worst nightmare would have been flattery. The Action Field—so named because Duelists could traverse its holographic terrain to gain tactical advantages in their battles—was a literal island of candies, pastries, and all manner of foods that would send most parents sprinting for the nearest tube of toothpaste. Gingerbread houses, large enough to function as actual houses, lined a wide stripe of chocolate that could have passed for a two-way street. Flans and jellies of every color imaginable sprouted either side like so many bushes, atop sheets of frosting so purely white that only the oddness of the surrounding landscape kept it from being confused with freshly fallen snow. Even the clouds that drifted lazily across the sunny sky had just enough of a pinkish tint to give them away as cotton candy.

Not one of them had drifted across the sun, however—which meant that Sakuragi Yū, sitting astride a particularly large and cushiony gumdrop, had to study the device in his lap with a hand to his forehead the whole time, to compensate for the glare. Slim, sturdy fingers idly brushed lavender bangs to the left of his face; while it was cooler than the sunny skies suggested, he’d been out here for long enough that his brow was beginning to feel sweaty.

At seventeen, Yū was one of the oldest and most experienced students in the Leo Duel School—which was itself the most respected Duel School in Japan, and arguably the whole world by extension. Just last year, he’d been crowned the Junior Youth Champion in the city’s annual tournament, the Maiami Championship. He hadn’t had nearly this much luck in Youth Division earlier this month—which wasn’t to say he’d crashed out; the bizarre turn this year’s competition had taken simply meant it had been canceled before he could have a chance to truly defend his title.

Yū had been present for most of those strange happenings—he’d even Dueled some of the soldiers from another dimension, who’d invaded the city that day. He didn’t like talking about it afterward, though—he’d put on such a poor showing against those that a small part of him had been thankful for the broadcast being cut short before things had _really_ gone south. To his relief, however, the announcement his headmistress had made around the world had put everything in perspective—and helped drive out much of the shame from his mind.

He sighed, content despite the continuing glare from his Duel Disk as he continued to take in the information spilling across its rectangular screen.

“Turn end!” squeaked a voice off to his left just then, breaking his concentration.

Youth-level students of the Leo Duel School such as Yū were encouraged—and implicitly expected—to take some time out of their day to function as tutors to younger boys and girls who were either starting to dip their toes into the wide world of _Duel Monsters_ —or had otherwise caught the eye of the prestigious school for reasons known to only the powerful woman who headed it. Whatever their age and experience, the aim was the same: to keep the most popular sport in the world flourishing so that the next generation could enjoy it as much as the current one did. And even though the two students Yū was currently observing were an odd pair on the surface, he had been tutoring them for long enough to realize that promising talent lay within them both—and, he privately thought, to enjoy the notion of finally letting that talent loose on the world when the time came.

One of them was the girl who had just ended her turn. Okaski Kaede was tiny, even for ten years old, and looked more like the poster child for a Sweet Lolita fashion catalog than any serious Duelist. Dustings of makeup and blush had been meticulously applied around the light blue eyes that dominated her pale, round face, while the lacy frills of her white gown—as expansive as it looked expensive—were almost as much so as her blonde hair, styled into twin bunches almost the size of the head they were attached to, and almost wider from tip to tip than the girl was tall.

Beneath this cutesy exterior, however, was the mind of an unexpected prodigy of _Duel Monsters_ —from a no less unexpected source. For Kaede hailed from the Cuisine Duel School, known for producing many more chefs and cooking personalities than it did Duelists of any caliber—and yet she’d claimed that Mokota Michio, universally considered the school’s best student in both Dueling and cooking alike until his untimely fate at the Championship, had implied she was an even better Duelist than he. It turned out this ran in the family: Kaede’s grandmother had been one of the first alumnae of the institution; after graduating, she’d opened a small but popular _pâtisserie_ in the city where Yū would often meet the little girl for their twice-weekly sessions.

A slightly nasally rasp, off to his right, reached his ears. “My turn—draw!”

Kaede’s opponent was her polar opposite in almost every way. Less than a year’s difference in age was about the only thing she had in common with Yashiki Yūrei, the boy that Yū had been tutoring along with her. Where Kaede hadn’t yet hit her growth spurt, Yūrei’s had arrived early; he stood a full foot taller, and the heavy black boots he wore made him seem taller still. Where her outfit bloomed and blossomed, his hugged and stretched; the boy’s long, two-tone hair—each purple-and-pink strand either spiked and slicked in blades over his brow or tied back in the beginnings of a ponytail—wobbled and twitched with the slightest puff of wind, while the studded leather pants and faded graphic tee that constituted his clothing clung tightly to his skin despite his already wiry frame.

And where Kaede was chatty, energetic, and not a _little_ bit impulsive, Yūrei was a self-proclaimed prankster. He was very quiet for his age and size when he wanted to be, and he sometimes liked to use that to his advantage by sneaking up on random people, waiting until they dropped their guard—before either going “ _Boo!_ ” to make them jump in the air, or waiting to see how long it took before they noticed him. Yū had admonished him on that in the past; not every random person in Maiami City liked having the pants scared off them for a laugh, particularly after what had happened during the Championship.

But Yūrei was a student at the Wight School, a small Duel School that Yū knew very little about; few of its pupils, if any at all, had been sent to represent the school in that tournament. All he’d been able to glean was that deceptively weak monsters were favored within its walls—along with a taste for the strange and macabre that flew in the face of most social graces (which, he had to presume, included knowing when _not_ to play pranks). More than once he’d found Yūrei with his headphones perched atop his gelled hair, blasting music at what he could only assume was the loudest volume they could handle. What little of said music he could make out had been enough for him to suppress a cringe; Yū had no interest in heavy metal, Japanese or otherwise.

Today, however, Yūrei had replaced his headphones with a stick of gum; the bubble he’d been blowing now burst on his lips as his gray eyes gazed intently across his field at Kaede, studying everything he’d done up to this point.

So was Yū; the Duel Disk in his lap had been in “observer mode” for the entire Duel so far, allowing him to analyze a battle without interfering in its progression. This particular battle had been back-and-forth for a few turns now, with no clear winner in sight. Kaede had the edge in field advantage—with all five zones on her field being occupied by a monster—but all five of those monsters were also face-down, as evidenced by the skull-like formations of barbed wire floating above each one, and couldn’t be flipped face-up until her next turn.

At 1600 Life Points out of her original 4000, she also had the edge there, too; Yūrei’s LP counter was a scant 500, and the two monsters he had on his field didn’t look ready to protect what little life he had left: one, a silly-looking, sheet-over-the-head-style ghost (Level 1: ATK 600/ _DEF 0_ ) bobbed in the air like a balloon. Its companion, an equally cartoony snowman wrapped in a scarf, didn’t look much more threatening (Level 1: ATK 800/ _DEF 100_ ).

But Yū knew appearances didn’t count for beans in _Duel Monsters_. Even the silliest of monster designs could conceal the most devastating of effects; all too often, new Duelists would find the most terrifying dragons, demons, and machines they could Summon stopped in their tracks by plants, animals and fairies that didn’t look like they could hurt a fly. He could count on both Kaede and Yūrei to remind him of this, every time they Dueled; it was one reason why the two of them were perhaps the most promising students he’d yet tutored—and certainly the ones he enjoyed tutoring the most.

The LDS student pulled himself back into the battle; the way Yūrei was smirking told him he’d drawn a good card just now. “I activate the Field Spell: _Ghostrick House_!” he exclaimed in a slightly nasally rasp. “And then, using my Level 1 _Ghostrick Specter_ and _Ghostrick Frost_ ”—he indicated both monsters in front and either side of him—“I construct the Overlay Network!”

Several things happened then: first, the gingerbread houses lining the street on which the two kids were Dueling squirmed in their foundations, as though shaking themselves apart. And sure enough, pieces of them were falling off, shattering on the frosted ground; within seconds, each house now sported a grotesque face with a leering grin.

The sky seemed to darken; more clouds had appeared over the high sun. But it was impossible to say whether they’d appeared as a result of the houses’ unsettling transformation—or by way of the galaxy of colorful lights and stars that had just blossomed between the two Duelists. Vivid purple energy lined both of Yūrei’s monsters, _Frost_ and _Spectre_ , before the vortex in their midst sucked them both inside:

 **“Fallen knight of a bygone age!”** chanted Yūrei. **“With your fearsome blade, ride out into battle!”**

**“Xyz Summon! Come forth from the shadows! Rank 1! _Ghostrick Dullahan_!”**

Something billowing and black hurtled out of the mass of stars, dispelling it into nothingness before it had even touched the ground. That writhing mass of black now became a cape, adorning the shoulders of a headless knight astride a red-eyed white horse, its severed armored helm tucked securely under the crook of his free arm. It bore the same childishly exaggerated proportions of the two monsters that had gone into creating it, and perhaps this explained its point gauge (Rank 1: _ATK 1000_ /DEF 0; ORU 2)—but it also looked just intimidating enough that Yū could forgive Kaede suddenly looking so apprehensive.

“ _Ghostrick Dullahan’s_ effect lets it gain 200 ATK for each _Ghostrick_ card on the field—including itself!” Yūrei said with a smirk, watching that same gauge balloon to 1800 ATK courtesy of the _House_ in his Field Zone, and a pair of Traps he also controlled as well. “Then, my _Ghostrick House’s_ effect! Everyone’s monsters can attack directly if their opponent doesn’t have any face-up monsters, but all damage is halved!”

His smirk grew wider. “Unless it comes from a _Ghostrick_ monster!”

“Huh?!” Even in her surprise, Kaede had taken a step back—something Yū would have been blind not to notice. Her round face had deflated like a loaf of bread in the oven that hadn’t quite risen all the way, and she visibly gulped as she eyed the Xyz Monster pawing the ground.

“And you know what _that_ means,” sniggered Yūrei. “Battle Phase! _Ghostrick Dullahan_ —attack Kaede’s Life Points directly!”

He stabbed out with a finger—“ ** _Skull-Severing Slash!_** ”—and _Dullahan_ charged forward with an echoing whinny from its steed, drawing a sword that looked a lot more threatening than its cartoonish size let on. Kaede took one look at the weapon and did the only sensible thing a Duelist in her position could have done.

She ran.

This was more by design than a first-time visitor to Maiami City might have realized. The Action Field they were battling in was not the only reason that an Action Duel was set apart from a regular Duel; players were encouraged to use the terrain to not only fight, but to defend themselves. For scattered throughout it were dozens, if not hundreds, of Action Cards—unique spells that appeared at the start of every Action Duel, and could be played at almost any time. Their effects were often simple, but their implications meant that even the most hopeless of situations could be reversed—if the Duelist picked the right one.

Kaede, it seemed, had found one such card—but her choice in fashion had ultimately betrayed her. The white shoes she wore under her gown slipped on one of the chocolate-chip cookies serving as a stepping-stone for one of the houses, and she tumbled to the ground with a squeak in a tangle of limbs and lace.

She only managed one more squeak before _Dullahan_ was upon her, striking her right between the shoulders with the flat of his blade. The force of the blow sent Kaede ponytails over petticoats, landing upside down in a mound of pink frosting heaped atop a cupcake the size of a small car—before sinking up to her waist in the supersized dessert.

As if to emphasize the ignominy of her situation, the pale pink Duel Disk on her left wrist—its butter-yellow blade still glinting in the sun—was issuing a long, squealing tone, somewhat muffled under the huge pastry. _Dullahan’s_ attack had reduced Kaede’s Life Points to zero, making Yūrei the winner of the Duel.

The victorious boy punched the air in delight. “All right!” he whooped.

With the battle now concluded, _Dullahan_ disappeared, and the sugary surroundings of _Sweets Island_ with it. The complex holographic imaging and interactive software that made the Action Field possible now deactivated, revealing one of the city’s many Dueling courts, bathed in the shadows cast by the late afternoon sun.

The source of the shadows was the monolithic form of the Leo Duel School itself: the tallest building in Maiami City—and arguably, the sole reason for its prosperity. No other Duel School had revolutionized the game of _Duel Monsters_ so thoroughly; under the stewardship of the Akaba family, and with the technology and financial backing of the Leo Corporation they owned as well, it had branched out around the world to expand that revolution, absorbing school after school in what could almost— _almost_ —be called a monopoly over the sport.

Yū got to his feet at last, shutting off his Duel Disk. “Great job, Yūrei!” he said approvingly. “That was loads better than the last Duel. I really think you’re starting to get the hang of this new combo of yours now.”

This earned a breathless chuckle from Yūrei as the bright purple blade of his own Duel Disk was cleared of cards, before retreating into its polished silver surface. “Thanks, Yū,” he replied with a smile. “I’m just glad I got all the cards I needed in my hand so quickly.”

He exhaled, his breathing shaky, clearly still giddy from the adrenaline rush of his latest victory. “But _man_ —I can’t _wait_ to see what everyone else at school thinks of this for my exam next week!”

A crestfallen Kaede shuffled up to the pair just then. She was clean as a whistle—the mess of frosting she’d been sent into had only been Solid Vision, and thus had disappeared with the rest of the field. But she was clearly upset; the little girl was smoothing out the many ruffles of her dress only absentmindedly. Yū heard her faintly sniff, and instantly turned his attention to the little girl.

“Hey—don’t look so down,” he soothed her. “You’ve been doing really well yourself today. Your last Duel before this one was probably the best I’ve seen from you since we started doing this together.” He smiled reassuringly. “We all have our off days, Kaede; the best we can do after times like that is to dust ourselves off and try again.”

“That’s not why I’m sad, Yū- _sensei_.” He felt something inside him cringe in half at the honorific, but let Kaede continue on. “I just wish I could’ve eaten that cupcake.”

Yū blinked. “What cupcake?”

“The one Yūrei’s monster knocked me into.” She hid her face, blushing furiously at the sight of her mentor trying his hardest not to laugh. “After the Duel, before _Sweets Island_ shut down, I … might’ve tried to … eat my way out of it … ”

Her stomach suddenly let fly with a rumble that made the delicate lace of her dress shudder. “Phooey,” she pouted. “Now I’m even more hungry.”

Yū felt a stitch growing in his chest from the amount of laughter he was holding back. The mental image of Kaede chomping her way through giant desserts Pac-Man style was too much for him. Through some herculean effort, he managed to swallow his mirth—though not without taking a few deep breaths just to be sure.

“You’re better off, Kaede,” he eventually managed to say. “That stuff would just be empty calories even if it was _real_. A hologram would just be empty space in your tummy. So if you had tried to eat all that, you’d just feel even more starving than you are now.”

He checked his Duel Disk. The numbers he saw on the screen made his eyebrows jump right into his hair. “Wow—okay, that Duel went on for longer than I thought, kids,” he said. “We’ll have to call it a day from here before your families get worried.”

He was staring at the downcast Kaede as he said this, and so did not see the expression on Yūrei’s face in full; only that it looked every bit as disheartened as she did at the end of another successful day of Dueling.

He shut off his Duel Disk at length, then folded up the device and slid it into his pocket. “You want me to walk you to the bus stop again?”

“Actually, can we go back to my grandma’s place?” Kaede piped up. “You still haven’t met her yet, Yū- _sensei_ ”—he fought the urge to cringe again—“and she’s _really_ been wanting to meet you ever since I told her about my lessons with you!”

The stress in the “really” told Yū what was coming next—and he _really_ didn’t want to look at her to find out for himself—but that didn’t stop him from doing it anyway.

Sure enough, Kaede’s bright blue eyes had gone wide and innocent—like a tiny kitten that had just realized for the first time in its life how mighty a weapon its gaze could be, and had sworn in its tiny kitten mind to never use this awesome power for evil intent again … at least, for about ten seconds.

And ten seconds was about all it took to crumble Yū’s defenses. “Eh—sure, why not?” he shrugged, and Kaede cheered. “How does that sound, Yūrei?”

“Sure!” The boy’s reply was almost immediate—perhaps even too much so—but Yū paid it little mind. “Y-yeah,” Yūrei stammered, perhaps catching himself, “it’d be great to stay there again … ”

“Just don’t play your music in there too loud!” Kaede said bossily, sticking her tongue out at Yūrei as they turned to leave the Dueling court. “I had nightmares for a week after you showed me that creepy ‘Darren Gray’ video!”

“That’s _Dir En Grey_!” retorted Yūrei. “And that was only the one time—!”

“Kids—kids!” Yū held up his hands in an attempt to stave off the bickering. He’d been lucky to do so when they’d just started; experience had told him this. Both children now stared attentively at him, waiting for him to go on.

“Look—I’ll walk you both to your grandma’s, Kaede,” he said, “but I can’t promise I’ll stay for long. I do go to LDS, remember.” He thumbed over his shoulder at the crystalline skyscraper that dwarfed them. “They expect a lot of me here. I’ll say goodbye to you there—and I’ll wish you luck on your exam before I take off, Yūrei—but I won’t be able to see you again until our next session.”

Eventually, the kids acquiesced, though not without a pair of equally subdued “Okays”—but Yū didn’t worry too much. He’d grown to know them well enough that they’d be their usual selves by the time they got inside.

“It’s close to sunset,” he said to them. “We should get a move on before it gets dark.”

They left the Dueling arena then, so intent on beating both time and traffic that they didn’t bother to pay close attention to the shrubs lining the court—or to entertain the possibility that they might be just big enough to hide a truth from their eyes that would change their lives forever.

* * *

As has been said, the game of _Duel Monsters_ is so prevalent in Maiami City that a first-time visitor is far more likely to master the game faster by watching a complete stranger play it, instead of by learning the rules on their own.

But _Duel Monsters_ is more than a card game, where victory depends on who summons which monsters, casts which spells—or even who sets which traps. The most successful of Duelists do not simply focus on playing the game, but the _opponent_ playing the game instead. To know the thoughts and habits of the Duelist, and being able to read them and act accordingly, has proven time and again a strategy more intimate and more devastating than any combination of cards the game has ever produced.

The figure hiding in the bushes, his dark clothing camouflaging him perfectly against the shadows on the wall, knew this to be true—all too well. And so he watched the three children cross the street, content to let them go. He’d catch up with them soon enough.

He kept on watching until they disappeared in the throngs of cars and crowds of the evening rush—and then, with a whirl of his black cloak, he’d disappeared as well.


	2. II

II

Kaede’s parents were often out of town on business. According to her, they worked for a very big tire firm based in France—she was an inspector, he a writer. Exactly what that had to do with food—or even if it had anything to do with food at all—Yū wasn’t certain; Kaede often bemoaned that her parents were particularly reluctant to discuss the details of what she did for her job, even with her. All she knew was that they were home for perhaps once every other weekend before suddenly being whisked away on a plane flight—anywhere from Sendai and Fukuoka to Seoul and Shanghai. This meant that Kaede saw her grandmother more often than her mother and father—which in turn meant that the modest, pastel-colored flat above her grandmother’s shop had become her home away from home.

On the outside, _Kazue’s Puzzling Pâtisserie_ didn’t look like the first reason why kids and young families were so often seen in this part of town. That honor was shared by a toy store two doors down, an indoor play place across the street, and—Maiami City being Maiami City—an independently-owned comic-and-card shop that catered to first-time players, kids, or just anyone who preferred to play _Duel Monsters_ in a much simpler environment, with less competitive conditions. All three, with their bright colors and flashing lights, looked more likely to draw the eye of anyone who hadn’t reached the age of ten than the pale yellows, pinks, and blues that Kaede’s grandmother had used to paint both the edifice of her shop and her upstairs dwelling.

But the trick to her success was twofold, explained Okashi Kazue to Yū as she laid out a place with three more of her signature _millefeuille énigmes_ —cut out in the jigsaw-puzzle-piece shape that had put her store on the city map.

“Tell me about this one, Yū- _chan_.” She pointed to the nearest pastry with a gnarled finger. “Could you describe it to me? My eyes aren’t what they used to be.”

She winked, and Yū smiled. He knew even before then that the kindly old woman was lying through her teeth—or perhaps just the one tooth, in Kazue’s case—but he indulged her anyway.

“Well, there’s a strawberry on the top,” he started, letting his eyes travel downward, then around the confection. “Looks like chocolate and … blackcurrant jelly?” He looked to Kaede for confirmation; the Cuisine Duelist nodded back, unable to say anything through the pastry she was currently demolishing with gusto. “Drizzled over the fondant glaze, right … dusting of powdered sugar for garnish and— _ouch_!”

He yelped as Kazue rapped him on the forehead with her index and middle finger. “What was that for?”

Kaede’s grandmother was the picture of innocence. “I’m sorry, did you say something? I stopped listening after you mentioned the strawberry.”

Before Yū could respond to that, something flashed in her eye, and the LDS Duelist immediately bit back his words.

“It’s always the little things that we remember,” Kazue told him. “It’s the details that stick in our minds—those little bits of color in the black and white of everything we do everyday. That’s why the strawberry was the first thing you described to me—because _it was the first thing you noticed_. But most people,” she said, raising a finger, “don’t often realize that the little thing for one person might not be so little for _another_.”

Yū thought he understood. “People stop by here so they can unwind and have a treat while their kids play,” he guessed. The relative lack of vivid colors was much more relaxing than the hustle and bustle of a playground, he thought. “But they’re so preoccupied with their own lives that they don’t really think about what goes into that treat? Or even how this place got made?”

Kazue tilted her head quizzically. “You’re not making any sense at all,” she wheezed with an impish grin.

“ _Obāchan_?” A twenty-something woman had just come up to them. Cradled in one arm was a tiny girl no older than three who had to be her daughter. Immediately, Kazue had turned to beam dotingly at the pair.

“Well, if it isn’t Aimi and Aiko- _tan_!” she gasped in mock surprise. “Are you feeling better now?”

Aiko nodded shyly. “I saw you with her after she skinned her elbow in the bouncy castle across the street,” Aimi explained. “So I told her I’d let her buy a snack here before we headed home—because I knew she’d want to see you one more time.” Then, to the child, “Say ‘thank you’, Aiko!”

Aiko, blushing furiously, burbled something that kids her age might have thought sufficed for polite thanks, and hid her face in Aimi’s shoulder just as quickly. Yūrei was seen to pull a face of disgust at the overly cutesy display.

Both women, however, didn’t notice, and even Yū felt a smile curling round his cheeks at the display. “Oh—well, you’re very welcome,” said Kazue warmly, as mother and daughter turned to leave. “Bye-bye, now!

“And that’s it,” she said after turning back to Yū. “That right there is my so-called secret to success.”

This, however, raised yet more questions for the LDS Duelist. “The play place?” Kazue nodded. “What were you doing over there? You’ll forgive me if I can’t see you bouncing off the walls with a bunch of kids,” he joked.

“Think about what you just heard,” said the old woman, still smiling. “Don’t you think that woman was a little too old to be calling me _obāchan_?”

Yū thought. “I guess,” he conceded. “Especially since I know your only grandchild is sitting right across from me.” He nodded to Kaede. “But I don’t see what any of that has to do with what you were saying to me earlier.”

Kazue grinned. “The secret to life isn’t the little things in life,” she said. “It’s _being_ the little things in someone _else’s_ life.” She looked to Yū’s pastry. “Underneath the details—under all that garnish and glaze—is the same old _millefeuille_ I’ve been making since I was Aimi’s age. I can pretty it up as much as I want, I can go out of my way to make sure no two of my _énigmes_ are the same. But, like they say in America—‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’.”

Yū remembered that Kazue had called her success twofold. “What’s the other part, then?”

The grin got wider. Yū could almost see the one remaining tooth behind the aged lips. “I just told you.” Kazue leaned in close, as if to confide a great secret. “I’m Kaede’s _obāchan_. But,” she added, “that doesn’t mean I can’t be everyone else’s _obāchan_.”

She cackled and creaked as she saw the look of enlightenment dawn upon Yū’s face. “There’s nothing more to it than that?” asked the boy. “You’re just … _there_? At the play place, the card shop—everywhere on the street?”

“Nothing brings in business like an old geezer with a smile on her face, a spring in her step, and a spark in her eye,” Kazue said sagely. “It’s the kind of marketing that money can’t buy—and it’s why I’m glad you’re the one who’s my granddaughter’s Dueling tutor. Because sooner or later, those two kids are going to be a part of the very first class you teach; I’ll wager my last tooth on it. Oh, yes—you’ve got the same smile, spring, and spark as Kaede’s father did, when he and my daughter had their first date here. Ah, I remember it like it was yesterday … ”

She closed her eyes wistfully—and then abruptly clapped Yū on the shoulder. “So I think you’ll make for a wonderful teacher. And a handsome one, too,” she added with a wheezy giggle, “if I say so myself.”

Yū felt his cheeks turn rosy at the compliment. “Oh, um—thanks,” he said, rubbing the back of his suddenly warm neck. “But I think I’ve got a long way to go before the kids on the block start calling me _Ojīchan_.” He privately amended that he’d rather they not; it was embarrassing enough that Kaede called him her _sensei_. The notion of twenty more kids her age calling him the same thing made him shudder.

But the mischievous wink Kazue passed at him told him it might be too late already. “If I have my way,” she grinned, “I’ll live long enough to make sure that name _sticks_. Isn’t that right?”

She’d looked to Kaede and Yūrei, the latter of whom looked so far out of place in the pastel paint scheme of the bakery’s interior that it boggled belief. Both kids, however, were already trading wicked grins; they’d heard every word, and had every intention of carrying out Kazue’s wish.

Yū was saved by the beeping alarm of his Duel Disk—it was high time he got home. “Hey, I’ve got to head back and rest up,” he told his pupils. “You sure you’ll be fine here by yourselves for a little longer?”

“Sure!” Kaede’s face was almost nothing but smile. “My grandma has a bonus room upstairs that she decorated like my room back home! I can lock Yūrei inside and make him look at all the girly things in there!” she teased.

“Don’t even joke about that.” An eyebrow twitched beneath Yūrei’s gelled hair. “I wouldn’t lock you in _my_ room. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.”

Kaede stuck out her tongue. “I bet I wouldn’t even be able to _see_ in your room,” she guffawed. “What’d you do—paint it black and spooky like all those bands you listen to?”

“A-a-and heading off now.” Yū hurriedly excused himself before the two children really started to bicker. “Do me a favor?” he said to Kazue on the way out. “Make sure they don’t get _too_ into it. I know kids like to argue, but I don’t want them to take it too far. Last thing I want is one of their Duel Monsters blowing a hole in your ceiling.”

Kazue was still grinning. “Let them try,” she winked back. “Kaede didn’t learn everything from _you_ , after all.”

Yū wasn’t sure if that was meant to reassure him—but reassured he felt, and so he departed the shop then, waving goodbye to Kaede and Yūrei, feeling much more lighthearted than he had all of last week.

* * *

That feeling, unfortunately, lasted all of sixty seconds.

The sun had set by now, and the last of the crowds were beginning to depart the street. Yū caught a glimpse of the last few stragglers leaving the play place across from Kazue’s _pâtisserie_ , pleading with their mothers to take them back again tomorrow. The kids reminded him of his own pupils, and he smiled again as he set off into the night.

Very soon, however, the smile had melted off his face like vapor against a window. Some sixth sense was tapping at his inside of Yū’s brain—a sense he’d only recently begun to develop after his unfortunate experience at the Maiami Championship. He slowed his pace gradually, stopped—turned around … but no one was behind him save for the night’s last passersby. Several of them were giving him strange looks at having stopped in the middle of the sidewalk. Yū hastily moved out of their way.

The yellow glow of a storefront window—a toy store, he now saw, and one he often passed by on his way to and from tutoring sessions—shone from right in front of him like an invite to sanctuary. He recognized the giant bisque doll that was always propped up in the window’s centerpiece—almost a dead ringer for Kaede herself, if the Cuisine Duelist had been a foot or so shorter.

He stood there for a while, his eyes staring ahead without really seeing anything. Perhaps it was just a false alarm, Yū thought to himself. _Paranoia_. He shook his head, and backed away from the window—

—when all of a sudden the light from within shut off, plunging Yū into surprising darkness. The store must just have closed, he guessed; he could see the faintest hint of a figure moving away from the door, deeper into the store, and disappear up some stairs that he supposed led to a residence. Within seconds the silhouetted form was lost to sight against the hustle and bustle of the city’s gathering nightlife, mirrored in the darkened window—

 _Wait_.

If his eyes hadn’t been trying to follow the would-be owner of the toy store, Yū might have missed it completely. But as they’d been attempting to trace the motions of all the reflections moving past him, he’d noticed something standing quite still, on the other side of the street, where the crosswalk was—almost directly behind him, just visible above his right shoulder. Against the glow of the streetlamps turning on, it looked misshapen and black, like a trash bag left on the curb for pickup. But the shape was too big … too broad … it was almost like—

It moved—only a fraction. But it was enough for Yū’s sixth sense to sound off in alarm again. That something was definitely some _one_ ; he’d seen the top of the bag peel back just slightly enough to make out a sliver of face beneath. He could see where the cloak concealed the shoulders, now—they were turned either side of him, broad and muscly even underneath the loose-fitting clothing.

 _Looking right at him_.

But he wasn’t close—he was still on the other side of the street, and Yū took that to heart as he forced himself away from the window, and down the sidewalk again. He’d picked his pace up slightly; he didn’t want to entertain any more dark thoughts about the dark figure he’d seen—

Someone collided with him—or had Yū collided with someone? All of a sudden, he was flat on his back, but just as quickly hauling himself back to his feet, apologizing profusely to whomever he’d run into. But in doing so, he’d turned towards the crosswalk—and froze.

The figure was gone.

Where was he? Was he still there—had he turned away and left? Or had …

The LDS Duelist, already short of breath, felt the oxygen crystallize in his throat—was that a ripple of black heading towards him?

_run_

At breakneck speed, Yū plowed headlong into the flow of pedestrian traffic. Men, women, and children gasped and muttered as he sprinted past them with a stream of hasty apologies, jostling them enough that he hoped they would cover his tracks for long enough that he could get help—now it was just a matter of how far away he could hide—

 _There!_ The dimming light was just enough that he saw the alleyway off to his right—a mere crack in the wall against the buildings that flanked it. He took a deep breath, waded into one last knot of passersby— _he was in!_

But Yū did not celebrate for very long. He spent a long, dangerous second to take a deep breath—and then he was going further inside, past rubbish bins and sluices still wet with runoff, swallowed up by the gathering darkness of nightfall. Yet had no intention of hiding in here until the man in the cloak—could he be one of those invaders? he wondered; he hadn’t seen anything about him to suggest it yet—finally tired of looking for him. If he was an invader, then he probably wasn’t alone. It was harder to hide from a group than it was a single person.

So Yū, his fingers fumbling, took out his Duel Disk—but just as quickly, he was suddenly posed with an unexpected question: who to even call? The police were the most obvious choice—but were they trained and equipped enough to handle even _one_ Duelist of the caliber he’d faced during the Championship? Would he contact his fellow Duelists to ensure he had reinforcements, if indeed there was more than one person tailing him? Or was there any use for either? What use would there be, he pondered, if he called on strength in numbers to deal with someone who—for all he knew—was more likely to be a misguided, run-of-the-mill stalker?

He jumped; the sounds in this alleyway—the dripping of water, his own footsteps, seemed magnified tenfold in the narrow space, and all the more for the darkness that robbed him of all sense of direction. There was nothing for it—Yū decided then to take the risk, and call the police.

The LDS Duelist was halfway through dialing 119 when he promptly got the shock of his life: the Duel Disk’s blade suddenly came to life; a violet-colored chevron shape that hovered across his left forearm, like the edge of an axe.

His first, foolish thought was to wonder what had happened—Yū hadn’t even pushed the button to activate his Duel Disk like this! But reason returned an instant later—followed swiftly by a growing sense of dread; he had the distinct impression that he’d been forced into a Duel. His worst suspicions were immediately confirmed.

“Who’s there?” The question echoed in the alley, fortunately masking the tremor in his voice, and making him sound more authoritative than he was feeling right now. He hoped that was enough—but that hope was promptly squashed scant moments later.

“Kaede, Okashi.”

_… What?_

As with his own voice, the husky rasp that spoke back was amplified many times over by the acoustics of the tiny space—but where Yū had heard a bravery to his words that didn’t exist in him at all, here it had been transformed into a menacing, and slightly metallic growl. Accounting for the distortion of the space, he guessed whoever this was had to be a young man—late teens, maybe early in college, judging by the low, resonant pitch of his words.

It was the words themselves, however, which confused Yū. How did this person know the name of his own pupil?

“Kaede, Okashi,” spoke his pursuer again. “Cuisine Duel School, Junior Division. _Madolche_ Deck supports monster self-recovery and survivability. Bypass inherent trigger effects. Defeat is imminent.”

Yū turned around in a full circle, trying to let his eyes adjust to the pitch-black darkness. “Yūrei, Yashiki,” the voice rumbled. “Wight School, Junior Division. _Ghostrick_ Deck favors stall tactics and field manipulation. Hinder field and backrow support. Defeat is imminent.”

The LDS Duelist felt his breath catch in his mouth as the weight of the words he was hearing sank in. This boy was casually name-dropping not only the pupils he was tutoring—pupils who were kids just over ten years old, the minimum age for most Duel Schools to accept new students—but also their Decks, the strategies they used, the weaknesses of them both … and most disturbing of all, where they went to school to learn about Dueling with them.

Whoever this person was, Yū now knew he had to be extremely dangerous. How long had he been tailing him, he wondered, to know this information? Had—a dull _thud_ reverberated in the bowels of his stomach at the unsettling thought—had he been tailing Kaede and Yūrei as well? Did he know not only where they went to school, but also where they lived?

“What do you want?!” he demanded, feeling his voice pulse with anger. “You’ve got five seconds to talk before I call the police!”

“That won’t help you.” Something about the suddenness and dismissiveness of the young man’s reply suggested that he’d anticipated that course of action. “Yū, Sakuragi. Leo Duel School Xyz Circuit, Youth Division. _Magical-Spellbook_ Deck combines multiple Spells and Spellcasters to control the field. Hybrid construction betrays minimal weakness; employ overwhelming force. Defeat is imminent.”

A new noise echoed in the alleyway, a sort of high-pitched, mechanical snarl. Yū had no trouble recognizing the sound of a freshly activated Duel Disk.

He turned in a circle again, looking all over for the colored light of an active blade, but none could be seen. Either the darkness of the alleyway was so consuming that it had been snuffed out, or this man knew the place well enough that he’d chosen a good hiding place. The latter was concerning; it implied that Yū hadn’t found his way here of his own volition—that he’d merely been cleverly lured into the narrow confines of the alley, like a rat in a maze.

“I’ll make this simple for you, _Sakuragi Yū_ ,” hissed the man. “Your Duel Disk is being jammed, and I have eyes on your only way out. One way or another, the only way you’re leaving this alley is through _me_. So—tell me where Yūto is, and I might just let you skip what’s coming.”

 _Yūto?_ Yū shook his head, though he knew the man couldn’t possibly see it. “I don’t know what you’re talking about!” he cried out. “I don’t know who that is—I’ve never heard that name in my life!” He’d heard a name _like_ it, to be sure—recently, too. But Sakaki Yūya was an entirely different person from whoever this Yūto character was. Maybe this man had been looking for Yūya instead, and he’d just gotten his name wrong?

“I think you’re lying.” The man’s voice was accusing. “I _know_ he came here. And I know he didn’t come _alone_. So where’s his partner?” he demanded. “Where is Kurosaki Shun?”

Yū blinked. _That_ name he recognized—but it only made the man’s questions all the more confusing. “No idea,” he said truthfully. “I know who he is—but he’s with the Lancers now. They’ve left the city—I don’t know where.”

There was a long pause. “The Lancers … ” The two words, hissed under a long, sibilant whisper, were almost indistinguishable from the _pitter-patter_ of runoff that trickled down a nearby gutter. Some of the menace had disappeared, now; if Yū didn’t know better, he might have thought his answer hadn’t even been expected.

Which could only mean … “You’re … not from around here, are you?” Yū said hesitantly.

He had said the wrong thing. “ _I’m asking the questions here!!_ ” bellowed the voice. It took a long moment before the echoes of the shout had completely dissipated from the alley; by the time they had, Yū’s unknown pursuer was speaking again.

“Okay—you’re not being cooperative.” Every direction exhaled a long, rattling sigh. “I’d hoped we could do this the easy way—but I guess we get to do it my _favorite_ way after all.”

Something hurtled down from directly ahead—exactly the same shape and size as Yū’s Duel Disk blade, bright scarlet rather than his dark violet, and illuminating very little of its owner on account of the continually hungry darkness. It alighted a little over a meter above the ground, then raised itself a little higher than that, tilting until the holographic edge turned directly to him—like a sword ready to strike for the kill. Yū, in a moment of realization, knew then that this man wasn’t much taller than he was—six feet and change, he guessed.

Then, a moment later, as if a switch had been flicked in his brain, all other thought was dispelled. Five cards were in his hand, the display of his Duel Disk brightened, and both combatants snarled, “Let’s go! **_DUEL!_** ”

* * *

On the other side of the city, deep under the ground floor of the most prestigious Duel School in the world, a young technician did a double take as the computer screen in front of her flared with telemetry.

She studied the wealth of digital information that streamed in every direction like a spider’s web, and repeated it all to her supervisor with the practiced cadence of experience: _a Duel is in progress in Sector SE-16 … LDS student Sakuragi Yū confirmed, opponent still unknown …_ But what puzzled her throughout all that was the nature of this opponent’s Duel Disk: the signal pattern her computer was picking up was not familiar to her at all; it oscillated on a completely different wavelength than the Disks used by many Duelists in Maiami City.

In fact, as the technician explained to her supervisor, recent experience told her this was only the third time on the job that she’d ever seen a signal like this before. At this, her supervisor’s face had darkened, and he’d turned away on the spot, pulling out his phone and speaking in low tones to whoever was on the line—presumably, his own boss.

Now suddenly left to her own devices, the technician watched the Life Point counters assume their standard amount of 4000, the hand sizes to five cards—but still the nameless opponent remained unknown to her.

But recent experience had also told the technician what to do in this circumstance. A few practiced keystrokes from her therefore triggered a flag on the nascent Duel; no direct action would be taken, but from now on, until one of their LP totals reached zero, every card and every play both Duelists made would be monitored and catalogued.

It was also recent experience that led her to hope it wouldn’t be Yū who reached zero first.

* * *

“I activate the Continuous Spell: _Advance Zone_ —along with the Spell Card: _Compensation for Arisal_!”

The unseen Duelist wasted no time in making the first move; Yū heard both cards slap on his blade in quick succession before he’d even caught his breath. “Then, because I control no monsters, I use _Evil Cell of the Inverz’_ procedure to Special Summon it from my hand in Attack Position!”

There was just enough light between their Duel Disks for Yū to see the monster that had been Summoned just now: a black, round, beetle-like creature the size of a beach ball, its three wings buzzing ominously in the alley (Level 1: _ATK 0_ /DEF 0).

“Next, the Spell Card: _One for One_!” the Duelist went on; Yū faintly saw several cards being shifted here and there. “With this card, I can send a monster from my hand to the Graveyard, and Special Summon a Level 1 monster from my Deck! I Special Summon _Scout of the Inverz_ in Attack Position!” The insectoid, grayish-black monster that emerged a moment later wasn’t much bigger than _Evil Cell_ , but it was considerably more erect in posture, and only slightly more intimidating for that reason (Level 1: _ATK 200_ /DEF 0).

“Finally, I Release my _Scout_ and _Evil Cell_ to Advance Summon _this_ in Attack Position! Come out, _Inverz Horn_!”

Years of experience in Dueling, and a physique to match, were all that kept Yū from being blown flat on his back from the mighty wind that had suddenly erupted in the narrow alley. But as it was, the LDS Duelist still stumbled where he stood, causing him to take his eyes off the field for a crucial moment. When he regained his balance, he very nearly lost it again when he saw the monster that had buzzed onto the field.

It rather looked like a human had been crossbred with a cockroach, and had then been force-fed so many steroids and growth hormones thereafter that it had grown further still—as broad from shoulder to neck as Yū was shoulder to _shoulder_ , and at least half as high again in height as he stood. The chitin-plated antennae that trailed from the monster’s head only added to its already imposing stature—while cape-like black wings and twin pairs of bone-white blades over its jaws and claws completed it, snapping and buzzing in an unsettling alien dirge (Level 9: _ATK 3000_ /DEF 0).

 _A 3000-ATK monster on the first turn?!_ Yū bit his lip. He’d seen monsters with that level of strength before; some of them hadn’t even needed card effects to make them that strong. But to see one so soon, before he’d even played a card … this person was intent on making sure he had the dominant field from the moment the Duel had started.

“One card face-down,” finished the faceless Duelist, ending his turn. “During each End Phase, _Advance Force’s_ effect applies during any turn I Released monsters for an Advance Summon. Since I released two monsters, I may draw a card—and then,” he added as he did so, “because of my _Compensation for Arisal_ , I may apply even more effects if I Released any monsters from my hand or field this turn. Since I Released at least one monster, I may draw a second card—and then, because I Released _two_ , I may add two monsters from my Graveyard to my hand!”

Meaning the _Evil Cell_ and the _Scout_ he Released to Summon that _Horn_ , Yū knew, feeling his teeth bite deeper still into his lip. At least this unknown Duelist going first meant that he couldn’t attack with it right off the bat; it’d be easier to form a counterattack with all four thousand of his Life Points rather than only a thousand.

The card he’d drawn just now, he thought with a smirk as he stared at its artwork, might just give him that chance and then some. “I begin,” he therefore cried, “with the Quick-Play Spell: _Divine Judgment of the Spellbooks_ —and then,” he added, placing a second and third card onto his screen, “I activate the Continuous Spell: _Spellbook Hall Étoile_ , and the Field Spell: _Spellbook Institute – La Maison_!”

Several things happened at that moment. A pair of multicolored sigils shimmered around him, glowing dimly in the murky shadows that still pervaded this Duel. The alley itself was just barely seen to disappear from view; its rough walls and pavement were smoothed and polished by some invisible pair of hands, until it had been completely transformed into a stately hallway of marble floors and pillars. The faint light of a star—or some unknown equivalent—floated meters above his head, but the darkness surrounding it lingered still, causing the ends of the hall, and the columns and ceiling that framed it, to be lost to sight almost instantly.

It was this that made Yū convinced that the darkness itself was not natural—that it must be the byproduct of some Solid Vision function the boy was using, in tandem with the nightfall itself; perhaps to aid his stealth and mask his appearance. _Well_ , he said to himself, _there was a simple answer to that_.

And so—“I Summon _Batel the Magical Spellbook Keeper_ in Attack Position!” Yū declared, swiping a single monster onto his blade. Fortunately, the holographic lighting coming from his _Étoile_ was just enough to illuminate the newest arrival to the field: a young boy in his early teens, clad in a blue robe and an elaborate hat to match, clutching a tome that brimmed with arcane light (Level 2: _ATK 500 » **600**_ /DEF 400).

Though he knew his opponent probably couldn’t see a darned thing in this light, Yū gestured to the hallway around them anyway—and more specifically, the blue light hanging above him like a chandelier. “ _Spellbook Hall Étoile’s_ effect allows it to gain a Spell Counter for each _Spellbook_ Spell Card I activate,” he explained, “and its second effect allows all Spellcaster-Type monsters I control to gain 100 ATK for each of those Counters!

“Now, because _Batel_ was Normal Summoned, I can activate its effect,” Yū went on, “and add one of those _Spellbook_ Spell Cards I mentioned before from my Deck to my hand! I add _Spellbook of Grimo_ —and then I’ll activate _that_ to add another _Spellbook_ Spell Card from my Deck to my hand!”

The effect was immediate: a massive tome, its edges and cover streaming with lattices of pale white light, appeared in his hand and cracked open before him. Transparent pages rushed past him at blinding speed, and sigils raced in every direction from the confines of each one. Yū waited until he saw a second star shimmer above him—a second Spell Counter—and for _Batel’s_ ATK gauge to therefore increase to **_700_**. Then, he made a show of pointing at no sigil in particular, and waited until the prearranged action caused the card he wanted to jut out from his Deck.

“I add _Spellbook of Sefer_ ,” Yū said with a grin, swiping that card into his fingers and across his screen in the same motion, “and then I’ll activate _that_ to target a _Spellbook_ Spell Card in my Graveyard, and have _Sefer_ inherit that card’s effect! Which means—you guessed it!” he crowed, as the huge book in front of him suddenly leafed to a different page, and erupted in navy blue lightning. “I’ll target my _Grimo_ , and add _yet another Spellbook_ from my Deck to my hand!”

By now, Yū was in his element. The _Spellbooks_ that composed his Deck, and the _Magical_ monsters that walked hand in hand with them, worked rather like a wizard casting a spell; the more magic—the more _Spellbooks_ —that went into that spell, the more complex its incantation would be … and the more powerful its effect. And as _Batel’s_ ATK swelled further still to **_800_** , illuminated by the light from the tome in front and the stars above, the LDS Duelist was well aware of the complexity of some of the incantations and strategies he’d pulled off that had allowed him to attain Junior Youth champion standing during the previous Championship—and he knew he had more left in him yet before he could consider this one the most devastating spell he’d ever crafted.

“I now add and activate _Spellbook of Ldra_ ,” he shouted, watching _Batel_ grow to **_900_** ATK, illuminated by a sudden surge of magenta light from the tome hovering in front of him. “By sending a Spellcaster-Type monster from my field—or another _Spellbook_ Spell Card from my hand or face-up field—to the Graveyard, I can draw two cards! I choose to send my _Batel_!”

The azure-clothed magician vanished with an echoing cry, his only remaining trace a stream of energy that disappeared into the holographic tome. An instant later, Yū was placing two fresh cards in his hand, and paused only to take in their effects before he resumed his usual rhythm.

The cards he’d drawn weren’t ideal; he’d been hoping for something a little more aggressive than this. But the LDS Duelist wasn’t unduly worried. He’d managed a great deal for his first turn as it was—moreover, he was keen on making sure this Duel could last as long as he could draw it out. If he was correct, then this Duelist was only jamming the communications functions on his Duel Disk, meaning he could not actively signal anyone for help. But the operative term here was _actively_ ; if his Duel Disk was being monitored—and Yū was certain it would be, thanks to recent events—then whoever was doing so could realize who he was Dueling, and have reinforcements inbound once they’d determined him to be a threat. So far, that threat had yet to manifest itself tonight—but Yū did not become a champion Duelist by simply waiting for his opponent to become a threat. He would remove that threat himself if he had to, before it became a problem—or barring that, he thought, glancing again at his hand, he would ensure he had enough options at his disposal that he would quickly be prepared for any scenario.

And so: “I now activate the Quick-Play Spell: _Spellbook Organization_ ,” Yū declared, watching yet another star twinkle into being in the darkness above, “which allows me to rearrange the top three cards of my Deck in any order I wish.” He did so, stealing a glance at each one; the order of the cards in which he drew them would be crucial.

“One card face-down,” he finished, placing a card on his blade—and that was all he could do; _Batel_ had exhausted his one Normal Summon for the turn, and he had no monsters on the field with which to attack and destroy that _Horn_. But Yū had ensured from the beginning that his lack of a field would not be his undoing—because: “During the End Phase, my _Divine Judgment of the Spellbooks_ applies, and allows me to add _Spellbook_ Spells from my Deck to my hand—up to the number I activated this turn!”

He felt a gentle breeze blowing behind him, and saw multiples of his own shadow extending across the Duel field, as if a series of multicolored lights had switched on behind him. In his mind’s eye, he imagined the sigil that had materialized at his back, its six metal wings fanned out like the biblical seraphim—two wings, inches from the ground, two stretched to the sky, and two more either side keeping it airborne.

 _Six wings_ , he smirked— _six cards_. And each one jutted out from his Deck, swiped up in quick succession—but Yū wasn’t done yet. “Furthermore,” he added, placing them all into his suddenly expansive hand, “this effect allows me to Special Summon a Spellcaster-Type monster from my Deck whose Level is less than or equal to the number of cards I added to my hand! I choose to Summon _La Mort the Magical Nethermaster_ in Attack Position!”

Something stirred in the darkness, directly in front of him; it was as if an invisible presence had commanded the shadows themselves to assume physical form. A moment later, that form had manifested into a tattered, black-and-violet robe, a skeletal half-mask, and pointed hat, concealing the face and slim figure of a young man barely older than Yū himself. A many-edged scythe was clutched in clawed black gloves, brought to bear in a defiant stance of attack against the roaring, chittering _Horn_ (Level 6: _ATK 2000 » **2600**_ /DEF 1600).

“My _La Mort_ gains effects depending on the number of _Spellbook_ Spells in my Graveyard at the moment of its Summon,” said Yū. “With at least three, it gains 600 ATK. With at least four”—he paused just long enough to watch his monster’s sinister scythe smoke with dark energy, its ATK ballooning to **_3200_** —“I can add a _Spellbook_ Spell Card from my Deck to my hand. And if I have at least _five_ , I can Special Summon a Level 5 or higher DARK-Attribute Spellcaster-Type monster from my Deck! I therefore Special Summon _Diable the Magical Demon Knight_ in Attack Position!”

Two cards extended themselves from his Deck just then. One, the Spell he intended to add to his hand, was swiped up thus with little preamble. The second was slapped upon the blade of his Duel Disk an instant later.

The figure that emerged from the shadows an instant after that was every bit as demonic—if not more so—as the unknown Duelist’s _Inverz Horn_. Spiked, leathery wings unfolded until their tips brushed the edges of the alley. Fire brimmed from its eyes and maw as if from within, and sizzled within sigils laid within the broad sword it clutched in its claws, and a prehensile tail slashed at the air at diagonals as though it could cleave through flesh and bone with the same ease as that sword (Level 6: _ATK 2500 » **3100**_ /DEF 1200).

“Unfortunately,” said Yū, “because that ends my turn, yet I still have more than six cards in my hand, I must discard any excess cards until I do.” This wasn’t the first time he’d run afoul of the hand size limit of six cards in a Duel—but he had since learned to be mindful of the cards he _did_ discard when the situation demanded he had to. With the amount of Spells Yū kept in his Deck, the hand size limit could be just as much of a blessing to him as it was a curse to most everyone else—any one of his _Spellbooks_ could be equally useful in the Graveyard as they were in his hand. So he hardly felt unfortunate at all as he slid a trio of them— _Torah_ , _Archive Solein_ , and _Archive Crescent_ —into a slot at the side of his Duel Disk. He would not need them yet—and very likely not in his hand even then.

For now, he was safe.

* * *

“All that … for two monsters and a handful of Spells you can’t even use.” The unknown Duelist almost sounded disappointed as he drew a card to begin his turn. “There’s something to be said for recycling your own cards, Sakuragi. But if you can’t use them right off the bat—if you don’t have the chance to make them count—then they’re nothing more than _deadweight_.

“ _Inverz Horn’s_ effect!” he hollered. “Once per turn, if I control this Advance Summoned monster, I can pay 1000 LP—then target a monster on the field and destroy it! I target and destroy your _La Mort_!”

 _Horn’s_ massive wings filled the alley completely as it rose into the air, thrumming at a pitch that made Yū’s bones vibrate in his flesh. Then, in a blur of speed, the muscular bug-man had crossed the field in the blink of an eye, sinking its pincer-claws deep into _La Mort’s_ torso. The magician was drawn and quartered before he could even muster a cry of pain, and disappeared in an explosion of photons. The shockwave made both Duelists stumble; Yū heard a grunt from opposite him as his opponent’s LP slipped to 3000.

“Next, I Normal Summon _Inverz Caller_ in Attack Position!” the Duelist declared, and another insect-man alighted next to _Horn_ : smaller and more slender, with arms and legs that looked just a little too long for its humanoid form (Level 4: _ATK 1700_ /DEF 0).

“And now”—Yū heard a hiss of breath, as if delivered through gritted teeth—“I activate the Continuous Trap … _Compensation of Blood_!”

The LDS Duelist’s mouth fell open. “You’re doing _what?!_ ” he exclaimed in absolute shock, as he sensed that the Duel was about to take a turn for the worse—and possibly, he thought, for the both of them.

Yū had never gone up against a Deck that used _Compensation of Blood_ before—but he knew the Trap by reputation. During the year in which he’d debuted in the Junior Youth division, he had had the misfortune of watching a Duelist play this same card while attending a regional in Hokkaidō Prefecture—and a crowd ten thousand strong had learned the hard way that the oldest cards in _Duel Monsters_ manifested through Solid Vision in ways that were decidedly _not_ family-friendly. The match was declared a no-decision before the Duelist who had played this nasty Trap was even stretchered out of the arena, unconscious due to the amount of blood he’d lost, and the entire tourney was very nearly canceled due to the extent of his injuries. It had taken a full transfusion before the Duelist was declared out of medical danger, and by the time he was discharged from the infirmary, _Compensation of Blood_ —and several other cards with it—had been banned nationwide from all tournament play for the safety of competing Duelists.

To see this card again, with his own eyes … Yū felt a chill rushing through his spine. For two things about this unknown Duelist had become clear to him now; firstly, any doubts as to whether or not he hailed from these parts had been dispelled—no one would willingly play this Trap anywhere in Japan, not even in a friendly pickup Duel. The cause of its ban was simply too well known. Secondly, it sounded to Yū as if this Duelist was bracing himself when he played this card—as if he _already knew what it could do_. That he was playing it anyway spoke volumes of either his resilience—or his recklessness. And right now, the LDS Duelist was not sure which one was winning out.

In any case, he felt suddenly grateful for the gloomy darkness that surrounded him, obscuring his opponent’s body. It meant he wouldn’t have to see what was about to happen.

“During my Main Phase, or my opponent’s Battle Phase,” the Duelist said, “I can pay 500 Life Points to immediately conduct a Normal Summon. And I’ll do just that to Summon my _Evil Cell_ once more!”

As the round, morbidly obese insect appeared on his field once more (Level 1: _ATK 0_ /DEF 0), Yū heard a dull noise that sounded like a blunt knife against a slab of raw meat. Then, there was a grunt of pain, delivered through teeth clenched so tightly they might be crushed to powder in seconds, followed by the LP gauge showing his Life Points dropping to 2500. But nothing made him feel greener around the gills than the noise that followed this: a faint, but steady and glutinous _drip-drip-drip_. The absence of bright light in the alley magnified the noises in his ears until they echoed in his brain, each sound driving home like a nail in plywood just what sort of madman he was Dueling.

“Not yet … ” Yū heard him growl. “Just one more … ” A final grunt; he must have dropped to his knees, only to get back on his feet. “I activate _Compensation’s_ effect again, and pay 500 LP for a _third_ Normal Summon!”

He grunted again, louder this time—loud enough to block out the knife-on-meat sound once more. But even this and his LP falling further still to 2000 was not enough to silence the spattering noise that invaded Yū’s ears a second time. “But this time, I’ll Release my _Evil Cell_ , my _Caller_ , and my _Horn_ to Advance Summon this!”

The LDS Duelist took a step backward in trepidation. _A triple-Release monster?!_ Inwardly, he suppressed a gulp; he’d not come across very many of these monsters before. Mostly it was because they were slow and too resource-intensive to Summon—but _when_ they were Summoned, they were often very difficult to remove from the field.

So he bit his lip again as he watched the silhouettes of all three _Inverz_ monsters disappear into the darkness, gone without a trace but for the puffs of shadow that signified their destruction. In its place emerged an immense mass of black-gold spikes and chitin, rising ten … twelve … fifteen feet into the air …

 **“Come out!”** bellowed the Duelist. **“ _Inverz Glez!_ ”**

The insectoid behemoth stepped onto the field in full, its massive body obscuring its Summoner completely (Level 10: _ATK 3200_ /DEF 0). Every square inch of _Glez_ ’s four arms was awash in a veritable sea of rustling spikes and chittering pincers, seething and hissing in a cacophonous symphony of noise. Wings the length and breadth of a small house flicked and flapped behind boat-sized armor plates, and a massive horn topped the beady green eyes set in its head—the only thing about the monster at all that was anywhere close to tiny.

“ _Inverz Caller’s_ effect activates whenever I would Release it to Advance Summon an _Inverz_ monster,” the Duelist cried, “and allows me to Special Summon a Level 4 or lower _Inverz_ monster from my Deck! I Summon _Gatekeeper of the Inverz_ in Defense Position!”

From behind one of _Glez’_ gigantic wings crawled a stout, broad-backed creature; Yū could have mistaken it for a hound dog if not for the fact that it was plated in enough black armor to rival a tank (Level 4: ATK 1500/ _DEF 1900_ ), making its ugly, wide head all the smaller in comparison to the rest of its rotund body. The gleaming jaws set within snarled and slavered at anything that caught its tiny white eyes.

“Battle Phase!” shouted the Duelist. “ _Inverz Glez_ —attack _Diable_!” _Glez_ lowered its horn, hunkering into an attack stance. That was the only warning Yū had before the monster charged at him like a juggernaut.

 _Diable_ was ready, though; the sizzling sword was swinging in a wide arc. It struck the horn, pinging off the chitin with a loud CLANG, causing _Glez_ to stumble, and its charge to miss _Diable_ completely. But a second later, _Glez_ had cleverly gone with the movement, and thrashed out with a thick black tail that wrapped itself around _Diable’s_ neck as though it had a mind of its own. Moments later, Yū recoiled—the tail did have a mind of its own: a second mouth had opened at its tip, and a quick flick of _Glez’_ tail sent that open maw right into the face of _Diable_ —

 _SNAP_.

The LDS Duelist winced at the loud noise; _Glez_ , pinning _Diable’s_ arms and torso from any chance of counterattack, had used its tail-mouth to _twist_ where it coiled under the demon’s chin, right at the point where spine met skull. The sword of _Diable_ fell to the ground with a _CLANG_ that cracked the pavement underneath—and _Diable_ itself, its neck lolling grotesquely, followed suit moments later. A final clawed foot to the chest from _Glez_ disintegrated the monster completely; the shockwave rippled across Yū hard enough that he grimaced in pain from the battle damage.

A hundred-point loss of Life Points wasn’t bad, though—3900 was still far better than 2000. But even so, Yū hadn’t been able to make a dent in his opponent’s LP—it had been all his own doing, and previous experience with Decks that used life as a resource told him that this Duelist had to have some way of getting his lost life back.

Worse still, he felt very, very naked at a stage of the Duel where he ought not be. His field presence was all but destroyed, and he was left staring down an insect-man the size of his parents’ car. It didn’t matter how many times _Compensation of Blood_ was activated—one more hit like that from _Glez_ and he’d be close to finished.

And for all Yū knew, the Duelist he was facing—still as faceless and enigmatic as ever—might well be capable of Summoning far worse.


	3. III

III

For many kids in the world, music is an influence on their lives. It drives their creativity, allows them to discover new vistas that their minds might otherwise never bothered to entertain. For some, this need to search and create may be born from a need to escape their surroundings—to de-stress from the rigors and minutiae of their daily life, and afford themselves a moment of peace in their own little world. So it was with Yashiki Yūrei.

The Wight Duelist had barely moved from the corner of Kaede’s home-away-from-home since she’d whisked him upstairs in a blur of blonde hair, and into the bonus room her grandmother had turned into a bedroom. She was a tornado on a sugar high, flitting between her prissy, perpetually unmade twin bed; her dresser, strewn with more bottles and vials of cosmetics than he’d ever seen in one place; and just about everywhere in between, bouncing off the pastel-pink walls like a _pachinko_ ball wherever she went. Only just now had the Cuisine Duelist come to a stop in front of her television—a plastic microphone in her hand and a wicked grin on her face as she slipped in a disk.

Yūrei knew full well that such a grin boded ill for him even before she’d switched it on and started singing along.

For him, music wasn’t just some mere escape—it was an actual, tangible goal. He’d harbored dreams of being a musician when he was growing up, and some element of this pursuit persisted even as he discovered and refined his talent in _Duel Monsters_. After all, there was nothing stopping him from taking the education he’d learned at the Wight School and putting his own spin on it—indeed, Yūrei often liked to fantasize that if he ever went pro, it’d be as both a Duelist and a musician. His Duels wouldn’t just be matches, but entire concerts played at venues packed to capacity, a device that was equal parts guitar and Duel Disk slung over one shoulder, while Duel Monsters would wail and whirl around him in the sort of ever-changing melody that dominates the brain of many a young boy.

That melody was trounced and trodden beneath polished white heels an instant later.

_“ … Hito wa dare mo_

_Isshō no uchi_

_Nankai aiseru no darō?”_

It wasn’t that Kaede was singing an overly cutesy song that was rankling him so—or that said overly cutesy song had an even more overly cutesy music video blaring on the television. Nor was it even that she was singing said song in one of the many overly cutesy dresses that threatened to burst out of her overly cutesy closet and all over her overly cutesy room.

It was just that the Cuisine Duelist’s singing voice was as far from “overly cutesy” as a ten-year-old girl could get.

To describe it as microphone feedback from the scream of a boiling lobster would have been an injustice to the lobster, the microphone—and probably even the cooking pot. It squashed all trace of inspiration out of Yūrei’s mind; all fantasy of being a musician-Duelist was gone in a flash. He squished his eyes shut, conjured up the lyrics to “Dozing Green” in his mind’s eye, and hoped that whatever song Kaede was singing didn’t have a lot of verses.

It wasn’t working.

_“Sonna tokimeki wo kanjite_

_Hana wa hokorobu no ka na … ”_

Both children were so distracted that they never gave their Duel Disks—tossed aside onto the plush white duvet of Kaede’s bed—a second thought. Which meant that the two vibrating devices, their screens flashing silently amidst the noise of the room, had been condemned to convey a message that would never be answered:

**CALL INCOMING – UNKNOWN NUMBER**

* * *

Five blocks away, in an alley darkened by Solid Vision, Sakuragi Yū exhaled through his teeth in displeasure.

He still carried the edge in this Duel; his field presence was gone, but the _La Maison_ and _Étoile_ he controlled yet remained—and he also had much more of a hand than his unknown opponent. That still didn’t change the fact that the monster standing opposite him was stronger and higher-leveled than any he carried in his Deck—and much stronger than any he had a chance of Summoning next turn. _Inverz Glez_ seemed well aware of its superior strength right now, too; the car-sized monster was leering at him, all four of its muscular arms crossed at its broad chest.

But what concerned Yū most was the unexpected Continuous Trap this Duelist had been carrying in their Deck—apparently unaware or unwilling to care that using _Compensation of Blood_ at all carried a severe risk to his body. He knew he had to get rid of that as soon as possible—not simply so he could save the madman from harming himself any further, but also to figure out why in the world he’d apparently been stalking him for at least this entire day.

“Two cards face-down,” announced his opponent just then. “Since I Released a monster for an Advance Summon this turn, I can now activate _Advance Zone’s_ effect: because at least one monster was Released, I can target a Set Spell or Trap Card on the field—and destroy it!” _Glez_ wasted no time in doing just that; its tail-mouth whipped out a second time like a mace and chain, lashing the pavement barely a meter away from Yū. The shattered remnants of _Hidden Spellbook_ faded from view, useless to him now.

“Then, since two monsters were Released this turn, I can draw a card,” continued the Duelist, “and because _three_ monsters were Released, I can add a monster from my Graveyard right back into my hand!”

Yū bit back a curse. He’d been keeping track of the number of cards in his opponent’s hand—not an easy thing to do, since he couldn’t see them in the first place—and he was aware that the two cards he’d Set to end his turn had been the last ones he’d been holding. And yet here he was, with the beginnings of another—and no doubt ready to use his _Compensation of Blood_ with them once more, to bring out another powerful monster, which in turn would keep on fueling his hand with more and more cards …

Yes, he knew—he’d have to be very lucky with his next draw, if he wanted to stay in this Duel for much longer.

* * *

“My turn!” he declared, drawing with a flourish. Yū turned it over in his fingers, and— _ooh, this could work_ , he thought with a slight smirk. But there were a few things he needed to take care of first—not least of which was …

“During my Standby Phase, if I have a Spellcaster-Type monster in my Graveyard, I can activate the effect of my Field Spell: _La Maison_ ,” the LDS Duelist said. “By placing a _Spellbook_ Spell Card from my Graveyard on the bottom of my Deck, I can then draw an additional card!” He extracted his _Spellbook of Grimo_ —its ability as a searcher and a Deck-thinner was indispensible—slipped it into his Deck, and then drew—

 _Now that’s more like it._ “I Summon _Mat the Magical Fool_ in Attack Position!” Yū cried, slapping that same card onto his blade. The magician that emerged from the darkness moments later looked much like himself; his hair was a darker purple rather than lavender, and Yū knew from experience that robes and hats were not his idea of fashion statements. But under all that yellow-and-green finery lay an expression of confidence on _Mat’s_ face that the LDS Duelist was quick to equate with his own (Level 3: _ATK 1600 » **2200**_ /DEF 900).

“Once per turn, _Mat’s_ effect allows me to send a _Spellbook_ Spell from my Deck to the Graveyard,” explained Yū as he ejected a card from the bottom of his Deck, then slid it elsewhere into his Duel Disk, “and so I’ll use that effect to send the same _Spellbook of Grimo_ I returned with _La Maison’s_ effect!”

He smirked. _That takes care of one monster_. “Next, I activate the effect of the _Diable_ you sent to my Graveyard,” he continued, “and banish 3 _Spellbook_ Spell Cards from my Graveyard to Special Summon it back to my field!”

The LDS Duelist threw out his hand—“ _Be reborn!_ ”—and as if it had been a prearranged signal, the earth cracked before his feet. Moments later, _Diable_ rose from the wide gash in the pavement, sword and all, none the worse for wear—though its narrowed eyes, burning aura, and guttural growl left it in little doubt that it sought swift vengeance upon _Glez_ for breaking its neck just a few minutes ago (Level 6: _ATK 2500 » **3100**_ /DEF 1200).

It was good—but not quite enough, Yū knew. “Now, since I control a Spellcaster-Type monster,” he added, “I activate the Quick-Play Spell: _Spellbook of Goethe_! That in turn activates the effect of my Continuous Spell: _Étoile_ , and adds another Spell Counter to that Spell!” _Which means_ , he knew as he watched another star-like lamp materialize overhead, causing _Mat’s_ and _Diable’s_ ATK gauges to rise to 2300 and 3200, _that my field is already right where I want it._

However … “Additionally, _Goethe’s_ effect allows me to banish up to 3 _Spellbook_ Spells from my Graveyard and apply a different effect depending on how many I banish! And by banishing three more _Spellbooks_ ,” Yū added, watching the holographic tome in front of him shine a bright, pure gold, “I can also banish 1 card my opponent controls—like your _Compensation of Blood_!”

It was a pity he could not see the Duelist’s face at that moment, he thought as he extracted _Sefer_ , _Ldra_ , and _Grimo_ from his Graveyard slot, sliding them into a separate compartment along with _Torah_ , _Archive Crescent_ , and _Archive Solein_ —which he’d used to fuel his Special Summon of _Diable_. He would have liked to know how valuable such a dangerous card was to his strategy. Perhaps it was just as well that he would never find out for sure; as he watched the golden light of _Goethe_ radiate out from the tome within, and vaporize its target into a hurricane of photonic dust, Yū felt a great sense of relief that he would not have to put either himself or his enemy through its torturous effect.

He glanced at his hand, and pursed his lips. Maybe it was time to get rid of a few more Spells in his hand so he wouldn’t have to discard them at an inopportune time again. “I now activate the Spell Card _Spellbook of Alma_ ,” he therefore said, watching the Solid Vision book in front of him flare with blinding white light, “which lets me target 1 of my banished _Spellbook_ Spells and add it to my hand! That’s one more Spell Counter thanks to _Étoile_ , and a hundred more ATK for both my monsters!”

He already knew which card he wanted to retrieve, and he swiped it on his Duel Disk before another pair of arcane lamplights appeared over his head—and well before _Mat_ and _Diable_ had finished growing to 2500 and 3400 ATK. “I’ll add and activate the Quick-Play Spell: _Spellbook of Torah_ ,” Yū went on, “and this card allows me to target a Spellcaster-Type monster on the field and render it immune to other Spells or Traps for the rest of this turn! So I’ll target my _Mat the Magical Fool_!”

As the light from his tome darkened slightly from pure white to a spectral green, washing over _Mat_ in the space of a second, Yū was well aware that he might be setting himself up for a blunder. It would have made more sense, after all, to use _Torah’s_ protective effect on his stronger monster. But even if _Diable_ was somehow destroyed by one of those face-down cards the unknown Duelist possessed, Yū had deliberately used enough Spells this turn that he’d be able to Special Summon it by its own procedure again next turn. What was more, he had every intention of getting as much mileage out of _Mat_ as possible—and that meant making sure it lived to see the end of the turn.

There was still, however, the matter of the Duelist’s field presence—and Yū knew now was the time to address it. “Battle Phase!” he declared, stabbing his finger at where he thought his opponent might be. “ _Mat_ —attack and destroy _Gatekeeper_!” Yū shouted, and the junior magician leapt forward to obey. One swing of his golden staff expelled a blast of arcane yellow light, disintegrating the squat form of _Gatekeeper_ in the time it took to blink.

 _So far, so good …_ “Next! _Diable_ —attack _Inverz Glez_!” Yū knew from the start that the attack would do no damage to the Duelist—and not only that, because of their equal ATK, both _Glez_ and _Diable_ would be destroyed. But Yū would have wagered his last tournament purse on _Glez_ not having the same sort of revival effect that _Diable_ did—and that would give him the edge on his next turn when he—

“Trap, activate: _Drain Shield_!”

Yū’s train of thought shuddered to a halt. _What?!_

 _Diable_ was rushing headlong for _Glez_ , sword to claw—but _Glez_ was already moving to respond. “When an opponent’s monster declares an attack,” cried the Duelist, “I can target that attacking monster and negate the attack—and then I can gain Life Points equal to that target’s ATK!”

 _CLANG_.

 _Diable’s_ sword—on course to decapitate its target—instead merely bounced off the chitinous skin as a sickly green shockwave erupted from the point of contact. The shockwave hurtled out in a ring of light, washing over _Glez_ and causing Yū to avert his eyes, and continued on until it reached the insect-man’s Summoner—while _Diable’s_ sword was lost completely and sent into a nearby wall.

When Yū next chanced a look, it was to suppress another curse; his opponent’s Life Points were now at 5400—almost half as much again as his own. _That was sloppy of me_ , thought the LDS Duelist; he’d even expected that this Duelist had to have a way to heal his lost LP at some point—but he knew it couldn’t be helped. At least he still had his _Diable_ on the field; that was a plus compared to what could have been.

And so he spared enough time for a sigh of relief before he made his next move. “During my End Phase, if I activated _Mat the Magical Fool’s_ effect—and if I have at least five different Spellbook Spell Cards in my Graveyard,” he added, “I can Release it to Special Summon a Level 5 or higher DARK-Attribute Spellcaster-Type monster from my Deck! And I choose to Special Summon _Rouede the Magical Beast Master_ in Attack Position!”

 _Mat_ disappeared with an echoing gasp of pain, disintegrating into a thousand golden fragments. In his place rose a far bigger monster, easily half as tall again as Yū: a muscular, lion-headed warrior with a massive, bladed shield that shone with the light of many magical sigils (Level 8: _ATK 2700 » **3600**_ /DEF 1700).

Yū spared a moment to grin at the strongest monster he’d Summoned this Duel. Then: “ _Rouede’s_ effect activates if it’s Special Summoned by a Spellcaster-Type monster’s effect,” he explained. “I can target any number of banished _Spellbook_ Spells and shuffle them into the Deck—and any remaining _Spellbooks_ I don’t shuffle go right back into my Graveyard!”

 _Rouede_ hefted its shield aloft with a growl, its mane flowing majestically in the arcane shockwave that radiated from the metal surface. Yū only needed to target one Spell— _Grimo_ was too important to his strategies that it should stay in the Graveyard for any longer than it had to—and once the auto-shuffle function had rearranged the single card back into the rest of his Deck, he’d extracted the rest of his banished Spells and slid them into his Graveyard slot.

“Turn end,” he said smugly. He rather thought Kaede and Yūrei would have been proud of him for pulling that off.

* * *

That smug feeling didn’t last for long, though. His opponent had barely even taken his fingers off the card he’d drawn before making his move.

“Trap, activate: _Means of Infestation_!” he shouted. “By sending an _Inverz_ monster from my Deck to the Graveyard, I can target another _Inverz_ monster I control, and make it gain 800 ATK until the End Phase!”

Yū took an instinctive step backward as _Glez_ flexed all four of its arms. The gigantic insect-man was growing, filling the alleyway completely with its wingspan as its ATK grew to 4000—

“And then,” snarled the unknown Duelist, “I activate _Inverz Glez’_ effect—by paying half my Life Points, I can destroy _every card on the field save for itself_! Which means,” he bellowed, as dark energy slithered all over his body, dropping his LP gauge to 2700, “that you’re _history_!”

Yū’s mouth fell open. _Every card?!_

He watched wild-eyed as _Glez_ rumbled into the air, its wings beating with deafening force—a sound that sounded uncannily like one of those old wartime bombers. Dark lightning crackled from its four hands, arcs snapping all over the alleyway; once or twice Yū smelled ozone from how narrowly those arcs missed him—

 _BOOM_.

 _Glez_ had moved with a quickness that belied its size; in an instant the air was awash with a thunderstorm’s worth of lightning, dust, and choking darkness. _Diable_ and _Rouede_ were vaporized an instant after that, their roars and howls of pain being the last thing that remained of their existence. And the devastation didn’t stop there; the shadowy bolts tore into the lamplights of _Étoile_ , shattering them all with impunity into a million shards apiece. The smooth walls and floors faded from view, replaced piecemeal by the dank and drab brick and asphalt of the alleyway.

Yū had only a moment to take all this in before his vision was suddenly filled with several tons’ worth of rapidly charging _Glez_. “And now to finish it!” roared the Duelist. “Battle Phase! _Inverz Glez_ , attack his Life Points—!”

He got no further—and neither did _Glez_ : a wall of blue-white light had suddenly flared in front of the Duel Monster, shielding Yū from being reduced to a thin paste against the monster’s bulk. _Glez_ roared in agitation at the sudden obstacle, and tried to claw its way through, but to no avail.

“When _Glez_ destroyed my _Spellbook Hall Étoile_ ,” Yū grunted, taking several deep breaths to regain his composure and calm his racing heart, “you activated that card’s _second_ effect—if it’s destroyed and sent to the Graveyard after accumulating even a single Spell Counter, I can add a Spellcaster-Type monster from my Deck to my hand, whose Level is less than or equal to the number of Counters _Étoile_ had when it was destroyed!”

“And how does that help you?” the Duelist spat derisively.

“Because _Glez’_ effect also destroyed my Field Spell: _La Maison_ ,” retorted Yū. “And wouldn’t you know it, that card _also_ has an effect that activates when an opponent’s card effect sends it to the Graveyard!” The wall blocking _Glez_ from finishing him glowed a bit brighter at this. “That effect lets me Special Summon a _Magical_ monster from my hand or my Deck, whose Level is less than or equal to the number of _Spellbook_ Spell Cards in my Graveyard!”

He grinned. “You want to count them with me?” he said daringly, ticking off fingers. “Let’s see— _La Maison_ , _Étoile_ , _Alma_ , _Sefer_ , _Ldra_ , _Organization_ , _Torah_ , _Goethe_ , _Archive Solein_ , and _Archive Crescent_! That’s ten different _Spellbooks_ ,” he crowed, crossing his arms at the breast and showing his fingers—extended to a one. “And you’re going to love the monster I’m going to use every last one of them to Summon!”

He threw out a hand. “Come out— _Tout le Monde the Magical Angel_!”

The light that flared from the tome in front of him was such that he was forced to cover his eyes, and take a few instinctive steps backward. He felt a mighty wind whip at his hair, and hunkered down on his knees to keep himself from being blown away—figuratively or literally.

But as soon as the surge of light and sound had started, it was over—and in its place stood a figure resplendent in billowing robes of purest white, shining with aquamarine magic that shone from dozens of sigils and spilled forth from wide, blank eyes (Level 9: _ATK 2900_ /DEF 2400). Six white wings unfurled, their very presence forcing Yū to squint—such was the purity of white that poured from every feather—and with a single beat they carried the wizard into the air until he was eye level with _Glez_.

“ _Tout le Monde’s_ effect activates when it’s Special Summoned through the effect of a _Spellbook_ Spell Card or another Spellcaster-Type monster,” Yū explained, “and lets me target 2 _Spellbooks_ in my Graveyard and add them right back into my hand! And _then_ ,” he added, grinning madly, as he plucked a pair of cards out of his Graveyard, “since I added cards to my hand with that effect, I’ll reveal my _Spellbooks of Necro_ and _Hygro_ —along with the _Étoile_ and _La Maison_ that I just added to my hand—and destroy all other cards on the field!”

He flipped each of those cards in his hand over—one, two, three, and four—for just long enough to show the green borders characteristic of Spell Cards. That was all _Tout le Monde_ needed to go to work with a will; the wall of light that now extended from his hand now became a lance of light made solid, spinning in the air so rapidly that Yū could have sworn it was generating a miniature tornado at its tip.

Then, _Tout le Monde_ made a motion with his wrists—and suddenly that lance was growing out of _Glez’_ back, hurled at such a velocity that even at point-blank range, it had almost gone straight through the Duel Monster. _Glez_ swayed where it stood for a long moment, then finally toppled backward and exploded in a shower of photons.

Yū almost wiped his suddenly sweaty brow in relief—he remembered the Dueling psychology classes he’d taken at the last moment. Part of a winning strategy, they’d said, was to make your opponent to think every move you made had all been part of the plan—even if they’d been happy accidents. Judging by the long, drawn-out growl that was coming from the other side of the field, he’d succeeded—and made his opponent all the more mad in the process.

“All right, then,” hissed the Duelist. “So you can bring out some high-Level monsters, too. Big deal. I’ve chewed through bigger in my time. So I think it’s time we took this Duel _up a notch_ , wouldn’t you agree?”

Before Yū could even react: “I Summon _Inverz Caller_ in Attack Position—and then,” snarled his opponent, not even bothering to wait for the slender insect-man (Level 4: ATK 1700/DEF 0) to materialize onto his field, “I activate the Spell Card: _Dual Summon_ to give me a second Normal Summon this turn! I’ll use that Summon to Release my _Caller_ —and Advance Summon _Inverz Madith_ in Attack Position!”

Yū covered a hand with his mouth, suddenly green in the gills: _Caller_ had dropped on hands and knees, every inch of dark chitin on its body writhing, contorting, and expanding—as if it was suddenly molting right before his eyes. Black scything blades were sprouting from its forearms, a wriggling tail was growing from its spine, and the armor plating on its chest was expanding into a blue-black cuirass, to make room for the new arrival on the field (Level 5: _ATK 2200_ /DEF 0).

“ _Inverz Caller’s_ effect!” bellowed the Duelist. “If it’s used to Advance Summon an _Inverz_ monster, I can Special Summon a Level 4 or lower _Inverz_ monster from my Deck! I Special Summon _Sharp of the Inverz_ in Attack Position! And I won’t stop there!” he added, as another black-armored humanoid shimmered onto the field to _Madith’s_ left, with wings and a barbed abdomen that made it look like too much of a hornet for Yū’s comfort (Level 4: _ATK 1850_ /DEF 0). “Because _Inverz Madith’s_ effect allows me to pay 1000 Life Points when it’s Advance Summoned with an _Inverz_ monster—and Special Summon another _Inverz_ monster from my Graveyard!”

No sooner had he grunted in sudden pain—his LP gauge dropping to 1700—then _Caller_ was back onto the field, hovering to _Madith’s_ right with a buzz of wings (Level 4: _ATK 1700_ /DEF 0).

“Let me ask you something,” hissed the Duelist, barely audible over the buzzing and chittering noises of his three monsters, “before I start annihilating everything you stand for. What do you believe in when you Duel?”

 _Huh?_ Yū drew back, flummoxed by the unexpected question. _He couldn’t have led off with that question before we even started fighting?_ It was difficult to think of an answer while staring down a veritable horde of insect-men—even if none of those insect-people were capable of defeating his _Tout le Monde_ —but he had a stab at it regardless.

“Knowledge is power.” He shrugged. “That’s it. That’s all there is to it. The more I learn when I Duel, the more I know for whatever future awaits me. And the more I know for that future,” he said, thinking of Kaede and Yūrei, “is the more I believe that future can learn from _me_.”

He felt the unknown Duelist staring back at him, boring into his face with an inquisitive eye. “Admirable,” was the eventual reply. “But even the greatest of teachers have a lot to learn. Sometimes from the people they expect the least. So let me show you the kind of power I know, _Sakuragi Yū_.”

A pause. “Watch now, as I use my _Inverz Caller_ and my _Sharp of the Inverz_ —to _construct the Overlay Network!_ ”

_What?!_

Yū’s jaw had gone completely slack. He hadn’t expected this turn of events at all. _Compensation of Blood_ had been merely unthinkable—but this … this bordered on impossible! _All those high-level monsters … and now this?!_

He watched, as excited as he was scared, as _Caller_ and _Sharp_ shimmered with violet energy, their chitinous bodies slowly absorbed by the light it gave off. He braced himself barely a second before a miniature galaxy of light had yawned open behind the Duelist, sucking both monsters inside and allowing Yū to see his opponent’s tall, stocky silhouette up close for the first time—

**“Great servant of the endless iron swarm, spread your wings and turn the tide of battle!”**

**“Xyz Summon!”** roared the Duelist. **“Come forth! Rank 4! _Inverz Roach_!”**

A hurricane of wind tore through the alley, knocking Yū off his feet and flat on his back. A few moments later, he was back up—cursing and wincing all the while—but all words and thoughts died in his mouth the moment he saw the creature that had been Summoned.

It wasn’t that big—barely half the size of _Glez_ , if that. But the spiked, gold-black armor of _Roach_ that plated it from head to toe—and on its broad black wings, unfurled to their fullest—shone with a brilliant sheen, even in the false darkness that had swallowed them all. Nowhere was this more evident than the thin, rapier-like sword it held aloft, resolve etched within every facet of its blood-red compound eyes (Rank 4: ATK 1900/ _DEF 0_ ; ORU 2).

“I end my turn,” said the Duelist smugly. Clearly he’d believed Summoning _Roach_ had stunned Yū into silence—and so he had, though not perhaps for the reasons he’d been imagining. The mere sight of this Xyz Monster, in a Deck that didn’t make sense to include any Xyz Monsters at all, made everything feel doubly unreal to him.

Who was this Duelist? Why was he stalking him? What sort of game was he trying to play, with a Deck far stranger and more self-destructive than any he’d ever faced in his life?

And why, he wondered, had he gone through all that trouble to Summon a 0 DEF monster—and an Xyz Monster at that, a type of monster only a handful of students had the chops to Summon—in _Defense_ Position?

The answer, when it came, stunned him so thoroughly that it felt as though he’d been struck by lightning. It wasn’t a question of whether he was stalking him to begin with. If that had been the case, then his Deck would have been tailored to counteract every move Yū made. He had said so himself: _Hybrid construction betrays minimal weakness. Employ overwhelming force_. That overwhelming force … hadn’t overwhelmed him at all.

He’d sounded like a hunter then, and the LDS Duelist admitted—however privately—that he’d been afraid of him. But hunters were calculated in every move they made, in the game or out of it. They were never this reckless, so scattershot in their tactics. He knew now that he had very little reason to be afraid anymore.

His opponent wasn’t here to hunt down Yū. He wasn’t even looking for his charges, Kaede or Yūrei.

He was just looking for a fight.

To flex his muscles, rattle his cage.

To what end, Yū still did not know. But he would soon enough.

“DRAW!”

He put much more effort into the single word than he needed. For some reason, people often believed that doing so would actually help give them the one card that ensured their victory. But such strategies revolved too much around luck to be viable. Better to have all the cards you needed first before you risked it all on a single draw.

And the single draw, as Yū suspected with an inward groan, would not help him in any way. But that did not matter much to him. He already had all the cards he needed—he’d drawn the last piece of his strategy ages ago, when he’d started his _last_ turn. The incantation he’d spent this whole Duel creating had almost reached its full potency.

First, though, it was time to test a theory. “I activate the effect of my _Diable_!” Yū cried. “By banishing three _Spellbook_ Spells from my Graveyard, I can—”

“Too slow!” snarled the darkness. “ _Inverz Roach’s_ effect! If a Level 5 or higher monster is Special Summoned, I can detach an Overlay Unit, negate that Summon—and _destroy_ that monster! Which means your _Diable_ is going right back where it belongs!”

And true to his words, _Diable_ barely showed the tips of his horned head before _Roach_ struck the pavement with the tip of his saber. A wave of energy rocketed outward from the point of impact, rushing across the portal from which Yū’s monster was emerging. There was a fizzling noise, and a shimmer of light—and the portal winked out in the space between one beat and the next of Yū’s thundering heart.

He cursed. At least he knew what _Roach_ could do now. Sacrificing his _Diable_ had not been in vain; his opponent had overplayed, and made a crucial error in response. The time to capitalize on it was now or never.

“I Summon _Force the Magical Warrior_ in Attack Position!” he therefore said. A much smaller figure materialized on his field, childlike next to the billowing robes of _Tout le Monde_ : a red-haired woman, surprisingly lithe and trim for the massive, lion’s-head axe held tightly in her grip (Level 4: _ATK 1500_ /DEF 1400). “And once every turn, I can activate _Force’s_ effect—by shuffling a _Spellbook_ Spell into my Deck, I can target a Spellcaster-Type monster on my field, and boost its ATK by 500 and its Level by 1! So I’ll target my _Force_!”

As he slipped _Divine Judgment_ back into his Deck, the auto-shuffle routines kicked in. But the noise they made was lost amidst the growl of _Force_ as she hefted the axe in her hands, her ATK now at **_2000_** and her Level at 5.

“Next, I reactivate my Continuous Spell: _Étoile_ and my Field Spell: _La Maison_!” Yu went on—and the familiar marble halls, lit by their lamp-like glow, shimmered across the alleyway once more. “Due to _Étoile’s_ effect, it gains a Spell Counter every time I activate a _Spellbook_ Spell Card—and every Spellcaster-Type I control gains 100 ATK for each of those counters!” he added, watching _Force’s_ gauge bulk up further still to 2100, and _Tout le Monde’s_ to an even **_3000_**.

“But I’m just getting started!” crowed Yū, slapping yet another card on his blade. “I play the Equip Spell: _Spellbook of Necro_! With this, I can reveal another Spellbook Spell in my hand, then banish a Spellcaster-Type monster from my Graveyard—and finally, I can Special Summon another Spellcaster in my Graveyard in Attack Position by equipping it with my _Necro_! So I’ll reveal my _Spellbook of Hygro_ , banish my _Mat the Magical Fool_ —and revive _Batel the Magical Spellbook Keeper_!”

As _Force_ and _Tout le Monde_ swelled further still, their gauges now at **_2200_** and **_3100_** , the hard-light pages of the tome before Yū flared with silver-blue energy—their edges tinged with bloody red from the influence of the _Hygro_ he’d briefly flicked out from his hand, showing it to his opponent—and flipped en masse to a different point in the book. Moments later, the teenaged _Batel_ had reappeared in a flash of light, looking none the worse for wear from its sojourn in the Graveyard (Level 2: _ATK 500 » **700**_ /DEF 700).

“All that for two monsters that can’t even touch me?” The rough voice of his opponent was mocking. _Inverz Glez_ folded its upper pair of arms as if in agreement with its Summoner, snorting in disdain at the field Yū had mustered.

But the LDS Duelist paid no heed to the stinging remark. “They don’t need to touch you,” he shot back, smirking. “Because my _Spellbook of Necro_ has a second effect: any monster it’s equipped to gains the Level of the monster I banished to activate it! And since the _Mat_ I banished to Summon _Batel_ was a Level _3_ monster … ” He gestured to _Batel_ , and let its gauge finish his sentence for him: the monster, once Level 2, was now Level **_5_**.

The darkness was unnaturally quiet. “ … Two Level 5 monsters?” mused the voice within.

This only served to make Yū’s smile all the wider. “That’s right!” he whooped. _Now I’ve got him!_ “And I’m going to use them both”—he paused for dramatic effect, as wizards often did—“to construct the Overlay Network!”

Scarlet light encased his _Force_ , and a bluish glare enveloped _Batel_. Seconds later, both monsters had risen into the air—lost to sight amidst the unnatural darkness, even with the energy that brimmed from their bodies—but seconds after that, the hurricane of stars that bloomed among the arcane lights of _Étoile_ revealed their shrinking forms, little more than silhouettes in the shadowy sky:

**“Mystic ruler of the arcane realm. Cast your most _élite_ of sorcery, and crush all who would oppose you!”**

**“ _Xyz Summon_!”** bellowed Yū, hands held aloft. **“Behold! Rank _5_! _Trice the Magical Empress Saint_!”**

Two silhouettes became one—and one flash of light later, something bulky and blocky descended from the sky. But the red and blue lights of its component materials still remained, and illuminated the monster in greater detail, revealing its square form to be merely an ornately worked throne. Upon this throne sat an austere-looking woman dressed in green-and-white silks lined with purest gold. White tassels, inscribed with black runes, billowed in the air alongside her long silver hair, and amber eyes surveyed the scene with utter dispassion as her seat came to rest upon the ground at last (Rank 5: _ATK 2000 » **2200**_ /DEF 1700; ORU 2).

Yū was pleased to discover that the Duelist had no ready quip to this latest twist in the Duel. He waited several seconds more, watching the darkness opposite him—but still no reply was forthcoming.

There was no doubt now—he had him. All he’d needed to do was bypass _Roach’s_ effect by Summoning lower-Leveled monsters to his field, then altering those Levels via their effects to give him the ones he needed. That was what he liked about his Dueling style so much—intricate and complex it was, and perhaps a little long-winded, but that was how it was when casting spells. The more complicated they were, the more visually spectacular they could be—and the more defense against errors or unexpected setbacks they provided.

The time for preparation was complete—that had only been step one. Now, it was time for Sakuragi Yū to draw in his audience—to build the hype for the finale just as he’d built up the spell he’d made for just the occasion.

“My _Trice’s_ effect grants it 300 ATK for each Overlay Unit attached to a monster I control,” he explained, and a simple intensification of the already narrow glare _Trice_ was leveling at the opponent’s field was enough proof of its greater strength—now at 2800, so said the point gauge. “But”—he eyed one more card in his hand—“I still need one more addition to my incantation.

“And to that end, I activate … the Spell Card: _Spellbook of Hygro_!” he howled, slapping the card on his blade and watching the digitized tome before him flare a vivid, burning scarlet. “By targeting a Spellcaster-Type monster on my field, I can make it gain a full thousand ATK this turn! Behold!”

Slowly, imperiously, _Trice_ rose up from her throne, clutching a long scepter in her hands. The same crimson fire that was erupting from the holo-book in front of Yū was brimming from the stone set in its crux. Translucent tendrils streamed from the jewel, seeping into the gold-encrusted gems expertly sewn into the monster’s regalia.

Then—with a loud, bell-like noise— _Trice_ brought the scepter down on the asphalt, and the scarlet energy rushed over her entire body. Her eyes took on the glow of molten gold, and the gauge above her head—buoyed by _Étoile’s_ latest contribution of strength—now ballooned even further to a massive **_3900_** —

Yū checked and re-checked the math, and grinned. That was step two—now came step three. _Delivery_.

“This Duel ends _now_! Battle Phase!” He threw out his hands. “ _Tout le Monde_ —attack _Inverz Roach_!” And as the seraphim flapped its six wings, storming forth towards the human-bug hybrid: “And _Trice_ —attack _Inverz Madith_!”

His Xyz Monster twirled her scepter once, releasing a scarlet hurricane right as the blindingly white wings of _Tout le Monde_ unfurled to their fullest extent. The effect was immediate: both of the _Inverz_ cringed at the sudden onslaught of brilliance, and turned to run away—but Yū’s monsters were too much for them. _Roach_ sizzled and died like an ant underneath a child’s magnifying glass. _Madith_ shrieked and flailed to no avail; the scarlet energy of _Trice’s_ _Hygro_ -enhanced attack roasted it alive.

But most importantly of all, Yū saw what was happening in the alleyway for the first time since the Duel had started.

Yes: his monsters’ twin attacks had done more than just vanquish his opponent; they had released enough light, sound, and energy that every nook and cranny of the cramped space had been filled with every photon. At last, Sakuragi Yū saw the person who had followed him, and had intimidated him with knowledge of Kaede and Yūrei that had made him fear for their lives more than even his own.

What he saw made him forget all about the deafening onslaught, and the Duelist’s LP gauge careening to zero.

He was tall—certainly a head taller than he was—and much more stocky and muscular. His hair was thick and untidy, so dirty with grime and general disregard that Yū almost didn’t see the dark green streaks that lined it. His face was still a mystery, however—partly because of the goggles and scarf Yū could faintly see covering his face, and partly because of the arm the Duelist was holding up to shield the glare from his monsters’ destruction.

That arm, a stunned Yū now saw, bore the blood-red blade he’d seen once before, belonging to the Duel Disk he hadn’t up until now. The body of the device was black as night, lined with the dark purple of dusk, and far more solid- and rugged-looking than his Duel Disk; fireproof and shatterproof, certainly—possibly even shockproof.

It was a device made for the long haul—perhaps even for battle.

Yū knew this because it was instantly familiar to him—just as it was to anyone who had ever known Kurosaki Shun.

* * *

The sight lasted for only a second. The light and sound lasted for only slightly longer than that. But the afterimages and aftershocks rippled through Yū like waves in a stormy sea, to the point that when they finally left his shaking body, he was not quite sure how much time had passed.

It couldn’t have been very long, though; now that the Duel was over, the Solid Vision that had blanketed the alley in darkness was nowhere to be seen. Night had long since fallen, but floodlights installed in the thin space—perhaps to dissuade any subversive human elements—had switched on, and thrown the boy’s figure into sharp relief.

Somehow—even after Yū’s final attack—the black scarf had still stayed on, covering his mouth and the bottoms of the silvery lenses that covered his eyes, like high-tech swimming goggles. Camouflage pants, so thick as to look like military fatigues, covered his legs in various shades of black, silver, and lavender, while a gunmetal-gray greatcoat—so torn and frayed that no fashion-conscious person would have given it a second look—was draped over his shoulders, the wide sleeves left empty and draping over his shoulder blades like tattered, useless wings.

“Your Duel Disk,” Yū managed to say. The sudden quiet of the alley seemed to magnify his voice tenfold. “I’ve seen it before. Just … just the once.”

Silence. He decided to press on. “You know Kurosaki, don’t you?”

That got a reaction; immediately the mask whipped in his direction. But still the man stayed where he was, and Yū took that as a good sign. “You’re one of the people he said he fought with,” he said. “When he was Dueling Sora.”

The mask tilted. “Shiun’in Sora?” The voice that issued from it was raspy and gruff, with a metallic edge that didn’t sound as though it was entirely the product of the concealing garment. “I knew him, too. Wish I didn’t.”

He walked towards Yū, then, his fingers working at what must be the clasps of his goggles, for they were beginning to loosen over his face, and his scarf was already being pulled down under his chin. “Yeah. Kurosaki’s a friend of mine,” the man continued as he continued to unmask himself. “We … we go back a ways.”

The Duelist forced a laugh. “I guess that whole Duel we fought was pretty pointless, huh?”

He extended a hand, but Yū didn’t take it. Not out of suspicion for the man, but because he’d just seen his face in full for the first time, thanks to the lights in the alley.

A cursory glance at his weathered skin might have suggested early, maybe mid-twenties. The faintest of five-o’clock shadows graced his craggy jaw and cheeks. One of them bore a deep, thin scar that ran across his nose and all the way to his hairline. An inch to the left or right would have cost him an eye. And the eyes themselves … Yū saw the youthful glint to the man’s deep-set gaze—a strange shade of yellow-green that pierced the night like the transient glint of a firefly’s phosphorescence—and instantly knew he was much younger than appearances made him seem … perhaps he was even a boy in his late teens, like himself.

It was the Duelist’s mouth, however, that turned his appearance from merely intimidating to genuinely frightening. Some jest of nature—or more likely, he mused, some bold and unconventional artist—had turned each and every gleaming white tooth beneath his thin lips into a triangular point, the flat edges whittled away into ripping fangs that tore the breath right out of Yū’s very lungs. Air hissed from the gaps in between, and the breaths he took were long and ragged, as though each one was a blessing to the ravaged boy who now stood before him.

Yū resisted the urge to swallow. This boy didn’t just look like he’d come straight out of a war—he looked like he’d been _fighting_ one. That scar on his face looked thin enough that he wondered if it was possible for a Duel Disk’s blade to inflict such a wound on bare flesh. The notion of _that_ made him want to swallow even more.

It was a long time before Yū felt ready to speak again—and even then, his faculties of speech nearly failed him. “Yeah, well”—he plastered a jaunty smile on his face and hoped to God it stuck—“I’ve heard it said that you never really know a man until you bite hi— _fight_ him!”

A hundred curses exploded in his mind at his slip of the tongue. “Fight him—well, Duel him. You … you know what I mean,” he finished lamely, before nodding at the Duelist’s mouth. “Sorry. It’s the, uh … the teeth. Got distracted.” He laughed nervously. “I, uh … I’m Yū. Most people I know just use my family name—Sakuragi.”

“Sakuragi Yū … ” mused the boy. He nodded. “I can get behind that.”

He offered his hand again, and this time Yū shook it—though still with some reluctance. “Call me Kurokōri.”

The LDS Duelist blinked. “Just Kurokōri,” the Duelist went on. “No need for nicknames or call-signs yet. And don’t mind the teeth,” he grinned lopsidedly. “You’re not the kind of person they’re meant for.”

“That’s reassuring,” Yū said dryly. “So—what’re you doing here?” It was only by the skin of his teeth that he resisted asking, _“So you’re not here to stalk me or the kids I’ve been teaching, is what you’re saying?”_ instead.

“That’s a story I wish I had time to explain tonight,” said Kurokōri, “but it may have to wait.” He was looking up and down the alleyway—at one point looking past Yū, and then above him, so intently that the LDS Duelist craned his neck to see where he was staring, but saw nothing every time.

Finally, Kurokōri sighed. “Look—here’s all you need to know for now. I’m from another dimension. I’m part of a group that was fighting a war with a _third_ dimension. From what I heard, that war spilled over into _your_ dimension not too long ago. Now it sounds like you’re wading into the fray as well with these Lancers I’ve heard about.”

Several seconds passed before Yū was aware of a tingling in his eyes, and realized he’d forgotten to even blink. “Okay, I’m sorry, you lost me,” he said blankly. “Just … _what_.”

Kurokōri pinched his brow in agitation. “There are four dimensions known to exist,” he said impatiently. “Three of them are named after the Summoning method they use: Fusion, Synchro—and Xyz, where I’m from. You can probably guess which dimension those invaders belong to. Yours is the fourth dimension—the Standard. Don’t ask me why it’s called that—my guess is you guys haven’t nailed down a name just yet.”

None of this was explaining anything to Yū at all—if anything, every sentence Kurokōri spoke aloud seemed to birth scores more in his brain. Possibly the Xyz Duelist had noticed, because the moment Yū had opened his mouth: “No—no, don’t ask questions,” he said hurriedly. “I’ve got no time; I don’t know if I was followed here. I’ll give you the distilled version when we have more time to talk.”

Yū huffed, and crossed his arms. “Get to the point, then. Tell me why you’re here.” He’d barely known this boy for five minutes, and he’d already exhausted his daily quota of tolerable secrecy. Any more than that and Yū would start entertaining a second call to the police—one that wouldn’t be jammed by any Duel Disks this time.

Kurokōri took in his impatient tone, and sighed. “About the Lancers … ” he said. “I’ve heard some talk about what they’re aiming to do to that evil Academia school. I just want you to know, I have nothing against the Lancers—I just want to be the one who throws the first punch. Before I start winding up, though, I may need your help.”

He started pacing around, back and forth, his odd yellow-green eyes never leaving Yū’s for a second. “I saw you with those kids earlier today,” he said. “They like you, I think—they look up to you. They’re the sorts of people who could follow you into battle. I’ve seen younger kids than them pick up a Duel Disk and fight Academia’s Dueling soldiers. Some of them even won. Think they’d want in?”

Yū stood there, shell-shocked. No, he hadn’t been hearing things, he eventually decided; Kurokōri had just asked him, as straight-faced as could be, if kids that hadn’t even hit puberty were fine with signing up to fight a war.

But before he could categorically say no—or barring that, to politely tell this man where he could shove his offer—a memory had resurfaced in Yū’s mind, one of many he’d made on the day he’d first met his two pupils …

* * *

_“ … Okay, then. So we know why you came to the table,” he said, taking a moment to stretch his legs. “It's time to see what you're bringing to it."_

_Yūrei’s spiky hair whipped upward. Kaede leaped up from where she'd been sitting as if from a springboard. “Are we gonna Duel?” she squeaked hopefully. “Sweet! I wanna see what kind of cards you've got!”_

_“Well … ” A thought had occurred to Yū just then—a reason why, perhaps, Himika had sent him to scout these kids out. “Here's the thing. You know how I mentioned before that it takes more than a Duelist to be a Lancer?”_

_They nodded._

_“I think the reason the Lancers are the Lancers isn't only because they're just that good at Dueling,” Yū explained. “It's because they're able to thrive under pressure as well. They're put inside an unfamiliar situation, and told to solve it as only they can. If they can solve it, boom—they're a Lancer.”_

_Yūrei looked puzzled. "I don't get it."_

_“I'm getting there,” Yū smiled at him. “Now, if you were watching the Maiami Championship, then I'm guessing you saw at least one of my Duels there. I was a returning champion, after all—they'd have been crazy to not show at least one. But you probably saw a bunch of the cards I played in those Duels. Am I right?”_

_Another pair of nods._

_“So you already know what to expect from me, then._ But _,” and Yū's smile grew a little wider, “this is the first time you two have met, haven’t you? So neither of you has any idea what the other can do.”_

_“I know she's a better cook than I am,” Yūrei admitted, pointing a thumb at a brilliantly blushing Kaede._

_But the little girl recovered quickly. “And I know_ he’s _not as mean as he looks—he's a big ol’ softie,” Kaede sniggered at Yūrei, who failed to hide a blush of his own even as he stuck his tongue out at her._

 _“That's all well and good,” Yū told them, “but neither of you knows what this means for their Dueling abilities. Which is why you're not going to Duel_ me _… ”_

* * *

Yū blinked. If it were any other time, he would have tossed the idea into the closest bin he could find. They were in an alley—he could have had his pick of them if he wanted. But in the time since that day, he’d come to learn a lot about Kaede and Yūrei. For all that they were little kids, boisterous and belligerent, sometimes kids had a unique way of looking at the world that adults, and even bigger kids such as he, couldn’t quite match.

And so it was that he made his decision. He took out his Duel Disk, and began punching in numbers. “If you think ten-year-olds are cool with being … _freedom fighters_ ,” he said as he did this, “then maybe it’s best you don’t take my word for it. Be a little patient—then you can ask them yourself.”

He brought the device to his ear. “Give me a sec.”

One “sec” later, the call came through—and Yū instantly regretted doing what he had. A karaoke song was blaring in the background—he could tell because someone was trying to sing along with it, and failing miserably. So loud was the noise from both song and singer that he almost didn’t hear the “Hello?”

“Yūrei?” Yū furrowed his brow in concern—the Wight Duelist sounded as though he’d aged well into his teens.

“Yū? Oh—thank _something_ it’s you! She’s a _lunatic!_ If you hadn’t called me when you did … ”

 _She?!_ Then Yū heard the screechiness of the voice that was singing—and finally put two and two together. _That’s supposed to be Kaede?!_

“Can you tell her to stop for a bit?” he asked. “I’ve got a question for the both of you.”

Yūrei was heard to utter a sigh of resignation. “Hold on.”

There followed some very colorful language—Yū would have to talk to them about that at some point in their next lesson—and finally a gasp of delight. Whatever song was blasting forth ended suddenly, replaced with what sounded like Kaede sprinting for Yūrei’s Duel Disk and snatching it out of his hand against his protesting.

“HIYA, YŪ- _SENSEI_! MY GRANDMA JUST BAKED SOME SNACKS AND YŪREI SAYS I HAD TOO MANY OF THEM BUT I SAID THERE’S NO WAY YOU CAN HAVE TOO MUCH OF MY GRANDMA’S COOKING AND HE TOLD ME TO PROVE IT AND NOW—”

There was a sudden _flump_ and a muffled, squeaky “Ouchie … ” It sounded to Yū—still massaging his already aggrieved ear from the onslaught of noise—as though Yūrei had smacked Kaede upside the head with a pillow.

Yū massaged his temples. " … And now you're a _little bit_ hyper?" he finished tentatively.

“And now she’s a _little bit_ hyper,” Yūrei echoed, mercifully more quiet than Kaede. “Sorry about that.”

But Yū waved it off. “We’ll talk about it later. Just put me on speaker for right now—I want her to listen in.” He paused until he heard the telltale _click_ of this being done. “Okay—question for you both. How early can you meet me in Central Park tomorrow morning?”

Yūrei exhaled. “I’d have to spend the night here. Kaede lives a lot closer to the park than I do.” Yū thought he heard giggling from Kaede, wherever she was, but Yūrei must have glared at her to desist. “But we could make it there by lunch if she hurries with _getting ready for class_.”

There was the sound of a very wet raspberry in the background. “That’s why you want to meet us there, right, Yū?” asked Yūrei. “Are we practicing again?”

Yū stared at Kurokōri. The Xyz Duelist nodded for him to go on. “ … Not exactly,” he said after a fashion. “See, I ran into someone on the way home tonight. Apparently he saw me tutoring you and Kaede earlier today, and now he wants to meet you as soon as you’re both free.”

“ _Wicked_.” Yū could practically hear the Wight Duelist grinning. “Can we bring our Duel Disks?”

He laughed. “Go right ahead. I had a feeling from the get-go that he wanted to see what your Decks can do.”

“Awesome! Wait—hold on.” Yūrei was heard to duck away; Yū thought he’d heard Kaede said something, but she was either too far away from the speaker or too out of sorts from her sugar high that he couldn’t make it out.

Before he’d thought too much of it, though, Yūrei was back. “Okay … so,” the Wight Duelist said hesitantly, “Kaede wanted to know if we could, um … bring friends?”

Yū froze. He’d expected his plan to go off the rails at some point—but definitely not this quickly. It was bad enough that Kurokōri wanted preteen Duelists to help him fight a war that said Duelists probably had more interest in fighting firsthand than he did himself. But the thought of them inviting _friends_ to this— _inviting_ , as if the whole thing was some sort of field trip—was so ludicrous that he could not help but feel a sense of dread hanging over him about this entire venture already. Putting that many kids in the line of disaster was a catastrophe waiting to happen.

 _And yet …_ “Hold on,” he muttered, and rounded on Kurokōri. He could tell the boy had heard everything; the look on his face suggested to the LDS Duelist that he was doing some very quick thinking.

“I don’t know how many friends they have,” he eventually said. “Or how many they might want to invite. But I understand why you’re concerned. And I do want to keep this circle small—if too many people are involved, it’ll be too easy to lose track of even one of them. So let’s narrow it down—I want anyone they think is the best of the best. Anyone they think can keep a cool head under pressure. And most important of all … I want Xyz Duelists— _only_ Xyz Duelists,” he stressed. “If they use anything else, or if they don’t use it at all, I won’t take them. They’re out. I’ll understand if they can’t find anyone,” he grunted, holding his hands up in defense, “but I’d like to hope.”

His lips briefly twitched in a smile. “I haven’t had the chance to hope for a long time. Not until I met you.”

Touched Yū certainly was, but that was still a lot he was asking of kids, he thought as he relayed Kurokōri’s words to Yūrei. Most kids were hardly the “best of the best”, even if they liked to boast that they were to anyone who would listen. And, sometimes, standouts did pop up every so often. Yū, however, had learned the hard way that not every prodigy could stay calm in times of crisis. And of the three different methods of Extra Deck Summoning that LDS had a course for, Xyz Summoning was considered the most difficult to master. It wasn’t something every other kid in Maiami City would have learned how to do before they’d entered their teens.

But perhaps this could be the chance to find out, he thought. “ … anyone you know that uses Xyz,” he finished.

“Got it!” said Yūrei. “I can think of at least one person who might be able to help you out.” He made an _“oh!”_ noise just then, as if he’d remembered something. “Hey, did someone try to call you earlier?”

Yū blinked. “Not sure. We were … talking for long enough I didn’t think to check. Why?”

“No reason. Someone tried calling me and Kaede earlier asking about you. I only saw because I was looking at my Duel Disk when they called me again. Sounded like a man. Big man, too. He said he was with your school.”

 _With LDS?_ Yū racked his brains for any big men he might have seen on the campus, but came up with zero faces. “Probably something about my homework,” he decided, rolling his eyes. “Anyway, I’ll give you two some time to scout around tomorrow morning,” said Yū. “We’ll meet up at noon with anyone you find. You get all that, Kaede?”

There was a bout of uncontrollable giggling from the Cuisine Duelist. Then: “PILLOW FIGHT!”

Then, for the second time tonight, Yū heard a muffled _flump_ —and suddenly it was Yūrei’s turn to topple to the floor with a groan. Any chance of hearing an answer among the squeals and shrieks that followed came closer to zero with every second. Eventually, Yū gave up and ended the call, sensing that he would have to trust Yūrei as the more sensible half tonight, and pray that was enough for neither of them to forget the plans they'd made.

“Well,” he said as he turned to Kurokōri, “I did the best I could. We’ll have to see who meets us—”

But he broke off suddenly, and with good reason: Kurokōri was nowhere to be seen.

Confounded, the LDS Duelist turned in a full circle, wondering when the Xyz native had seized the chance of leaving the alley. It must have been sometime when he was too absorbed in his call to notice what Kurokōri was doing—but even then, the only way out of the alley was the slice of city nightlife he was looking at right now. He couldn’t have left through there … could he?

Yū stared at the scene without really seeing anything for a few long moments. Then, he yawned—and all of a sudden he was aware of just how tired he was. Tracking Kurokōri down could wait, he decided. He needed rest for the long day he was certain lay ahead.

And so he set off for home, uncertain about what tomorrow might hold—but Sakuragi Yū could not deny the excitement that came with the possibilities tomorrow always brought with it.

Within seconds of his departure, the alleyway was as quiet and undisturbed as it had always been.

* * *

_Later_

The car arrived quietly, with little fanfare. Three men got out, each of them big and burly. The biggest of them was in the lead, stepping out of the passenger seat and drawing himself to his near two-meter height.

The lights of the alley cast shadows on his face. A single gesture sent the other two men into the car. They emerged seconds later with some complex-looking devices, slightly larger than a Duel Disk, but nowhere near as portable.

He produced a mobile, and dialed a number. “We’ve reached the Duel site,” he said brusquely, wasting neither words nor time as he spoke. “No sign of Sakuragi, or whoever he was Dueling. Permission to pursue?”

“No need, Nakajima,” said the cool voice of the colder woman on the other end of the line. “I’m reading his vital signs now—he must still be wearing his Duel Disk, but I don’t see anything out of the ordinary. He arrived home a few minutes ago. Probably went straight to bed—from the look of things, he fell asleep wearing his Duel Disk. Again,” she noted with a tiny _humph_. “He certainly takes his tutoring seriously, Sakuragi.”

Nakajima nodded. The news reassured him slightly. When they had failed to contact Sakuragi, they had tried reaching out to his two pupils instead. For whatever reason, they had not answered either—which was why Nakajima and his team had found themselves out here so late at night, looking for something he didn’t even know might still be here. His orders were orders, however—he had no choice but to follow them.

“All right. We’ll canvass the area,” he said gruffly. “We already know a high-level Xyz Summon took place here.” Nothing too strong, he remembered from the readouts the scanners had detected earlier, but definitely nothing from their end. “We got here soon enough that it’s possible there may still be some residual energy left behind. That could help us find out about whoever he was Dueling.”

“I’ll hear from you tomorrow,” said his employer. “Don’t attract attention.” The call ended a second later.

Nakajima was no stranger to his calls ending abruptly. But scarcely had he pocketed his phone when one of the men he’d brought with him came up. Concern was etched all over his face.

“We found something,” he said.

Nakajima nodded. “Then it’s definitely a foreign Xyz Summon?”

“Not just that,” said the technician. “It’s … You’d better see this for yourself.”

He took Nakajima to one of the walls of the alley, pointing to the decaying mortar that bound the bricks together. On that mortar was something the LDS employee had to squint to see in full.

His lips peeled back in apprehension. “ … What the devil _is_ that?”


	4. IV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Google Translate isn't so good at translating speech, it turns out. There's a lot of foreign language used in this chapter, and not being fluent in either one used forced an alternative that's probably going to read very clunky as a result. - K

IV

The first rays of sunlight streamed in through the front window of the toy store, and the large doll that dominated the platform beyond—only to be greeted seconds later with a huff by the sole occupant of the shop floor. Blue eyes squished themselves shut against the dawn while their owner shifted the object of her annoyance—a spindly-looking, 3D-printed hand made to look like burnished brass—to where it wasn’t reflecting the light into her gaze.

It was hard to watch Maki Kiko work and believe she was that good at what she did, considering her age—and her arm. Twelve years of living and breathing toys from the day she was born—half of which had been spent watching her parents repair them, and the other half repairing them herself—had made their only child their go-to option for any time someone brought in a toy to be repaired or refurbished. Kiko had no doubts that this store was to be hers before long—or that she would be expected to do more than just tend to toys while her parents tended tills.

For her, the older that toy was, the more exciting it was to dive into its innards and figure out how it worked. Circuit boards and blinking lights meant little to Kiko—not when enough old-fashioned clockwork was capable of doing the same thing. She ascribed this love of antiquity to the first toy she’d ever dismantled and successfully put back together: a child’s music box, complete with twirling ballerina. She’d been six years old then, and had borne one of the crueler jokes of nature for the six years before that—just as she would for the rest of her life.

Kiko paused in her work, sparing a moment to aim a withering glare at the equally withered stump where her right hand should have been. Having only the one hand meant that she’d needed her parents’ help for the more labor-intensive parts of putting that toy back together. But the last piece of the music box to repair and replace had been hers to complete, and that was enough for her. Since that day, Kiko’s deformity had not troubled her in the slightest—even back then, she had known that she could accomplish everything she put her mind to with one good arm that everyone else could manage with two. That was true with toys—and with _Duel Monsters_ as well.

A strand of light brown hair fell across her eyes just then. A quick puff blew it to the side just as quickly—and in less time than it would have taken for her malformed arm to do the same thing; she needed to concentrate.

The object of that concentration was sitting on the counter before her, just out of the sun’s rays: a brass flower just big enough to fit into her palm, of much the same antique style as the artificial limb off to the left. Fragile petals had been pulled aside on hidden hinges, exposing the tiny, many-toothed gears underneath. If she squinted, she could just about see the polished iron teeth, and the miniscule pins on the cylinder that plucked them.

Kiko frowned. Both the cylinder and the reeds had been cleaned and polished last night, she knew. _So they’re not dirty_. She felt for the dial in the back of the flower, turned it just a little bit, and listened intently to the song it played for the next few seconds—during which time her frown turned more into a grimace.

“Just as I thought,” she grumbled under her breath. _This won’t do at all_.

So absorbed was she in her task that she didn’t immediately notice the woman appearing from the staircase that led up to their living space. “Are you still working on that flower, Kiko?” she wondered out loud. “It looks nice!”

“Hey, Mom,” Kiko yawned back. “I’m not working on the flower—that’s already done.” She couldn’t help but feel her pride at how well the metal of the petals had been restored. “What I’m trying to do is make it play _Itsuki no Komoriuta_ ”—she waved her left, whole hand carelessly at the flower, its last few notes tinkling into silence—“but the pitch is all off. I think the reeds I found the other day to put inside it are too thick.”

Blue eyes blinked behind brown hair—both of which had been inherited by her daughter, down to the shade. “Well, you’ve still been working on this for the past few days, though,” she said, flipping the sign in the store window to OPEN. “Why don’t you take a break? It’s going to be such a nice day out, and you’ve been hunched over that counter since you got up this morning—you’ll have ruined your posture by the time you take over this store.”

Kiko considered this. “Maybe you’re right,” she shrugged, hopping down from the stool she’d been perched on and retrieving her prosthetic hand. With her other hand she rolled a black spandex sock up over the withered stump, onto which she placed the contraption. Kiko spent the next few seconds flexing each thin finger experimentally—waiting for the myoelectric sensors inside to register the muscle movements that the stub of her right arm could still produce—until she’d judged them in working order, and then layered a thick black glove over that too, designed to protect the prosthetic’s inner workings from the rigors of a tween-aged Duelist’s average day.

“I’m thinking of meeting up with some classmates of mine from Lily’s,” she told her mother as she did this. “The city aquarium’s supposed to have an attraction going on today with a dolphin smart enough to Duel. Got its own Deck and everything. If I hurry”—she smoothed the glove over her arm—“I might be able to catch a morning show, grab some lunch on the way home, and I could be back in time for the afternoon rush.”

“A Dueling dolphin?!” Kiko knew her mother had never been as quick to embrace _Duel Monsters_ as she had, and so her surprise was justified—not that the notion of any animal besides a human being capable of Dueling was an easy one to grasp. “Goodness … if I didn’t have to worry about store hours, I might come with you just for that. Were you going to take Karen with you?”

Kiko bit her lip. “I wish I could, Mom. I really do. But when I visited her yesterday, the nurse said I should give her another week before she’s ready to leave the hospital. She’s been getting more responsive, but they want to work her back into the world bit by bit. If she does too much too quickly, she could have an even worse regressive episode—it’d be like the Maiami Championship all over again.”

Kawai Karen was not simply a classmate of Kiko’s—she was a _buddy_ : one half of the special relationship each of the pupils of Lily’s Duel School were expected to cultivate in their time there. The founder of the school believed that _Duel Monsters_ should be more than just a sport or a pastime, but something every person should be able to experience in their lives—even if fate had dealt them a crueler lot in life than a typical kid in Maiami City. And while Karen’s lot had certainly been less cruel than others—unlike Kiko, her limbs and body remained whole and intact—the same, unfortunately, could not be said about the rest of her.

The front door burst open at that point, causing the bell above to tinkle rather louder than it should have, and was instantly followed by the telltale sound of sprinting feet. Instantly, her mother’s face had turned severe.

“Excuse me,” she said, turning around, “but we do have a no-running policy in here—oh!” she gasped. “Kaede!”

Kiko had already stiffened—she would know the _pitter-patter_ of those heels anywhere—and almost immediately, a huge grin had broken out over her face. She’d known their owner since before kindergarten.

“Hiya, Kiko!” Kaede’s head barely peeked over the counter—and even then, what little of it Kiko could see was mostly blonde hair.

As she reached out with her left hand to hug her childhood friend, however, Kiko noticed several things in rapid succession. The Cuisine Duelist’s hair had been twisted into a long French braid today—just another one of her ever-shifting preferences in fashion. The dress she was wearing had significantly less ruffles in its volume, which struck Kiko as odd—she knew Kaede loved to wear those fancy, wide, blooming gowns even on her days off school. A quick look at the little girl’s round face revealed a little less makeup than was her usual as well.

Kiko had spent a lifetime growing up with toys. Enough of that life had been spent taking them apart, tinkering with their innards, and putting them back together that her mind was rather sharper—and her eyes rather keener—than might be expected of a girl her age. In those few seconds that their hug had lasted, therefore, Kiko had surmised enough to suspect Kaede hadn’t waltzed into her parents’ store for mere gossip and girl-talk.

Sure enough: “Are ya busy today?” Kaede chirped.

“Not really,” answered Kiko. “I was about to go to the aquarium to check out that dolphin show. Wanna come?”

Like her mother, she saw the spark in Kaede’s eye as well at the notion of a Dueling dolphin. “Maybe,” said the little girl, “but I got a better idea!” She grinned. “You know that boy from LDS who’s been tutoring me?”

Kiko did—and not without a tiny bit of envy at Kaede’s luck—but it would take more than a difference in Dueling education to ruin their friendship. “What about him?”

“He made a friend last night after he dropped me off at my grandma’s,” Kaede said, “and his friend wants to meet me at lunch to see how well I can Duel with Xyz Monsters! I guess he must use them too, because I said I knew a friend who used Xyz, too—and he told me I could bring you along!”

 _Oh boy_. Kiko pinched at the bridge of her nose, just barely concealing an exasperated moan. This was not the first time she had had to remind herself that Kaede was younger than she was—and, therefore, much more impulsive. Nor was it the first time she’d had to admonish the little girl for roping her into her schemes without first telling her.

What took her aback despite her annoyance was this friend Kaede’s tutor had apparently made. He had sounded uncannily eager to meet two people he’d never before seen in his life—both of whom, she couldn’t help but note, were preteen girls. But Kiko immediately forced _that_ thought out of her brain—it was far too early in the morning, and far too nice of one as well, to harbor such unwelcome, intrusive notions.

She sighed, and looked her friend in the eye. “ … Kaede, I’m flattered,” she said, “but just because I’m the only person in my Duel School who uses Xyz doesn’t mean I’m _good_ at it.” That wasn’t completely true—Karen was taking online courses to enter the school from her long-term patient ward at Maiami City General Hospital, and Kiko was slowly but surely helping her to master Xyz Summoning as well.

But Kiko had received a firsthand glimpse of just how powerful that advanced Summoning method could be—and how much farther she had left to master it herself—only a few weeks ago, at a major tournament in Ōsaka. She’d had the misfortune of going up against one of the many students that the Leo Duel School had sent there; Kiko hadn’t even taken a single Life Point off him before the lopsided defeat that followed.

“Besides,” she added, “I’m hoping to meet some friends from school at the aquarium today.”

“So?” Kaede didn’t look fazed at all by this. “Let me come with you! We can meet his friend later if we leave now! Maybe we can meet someone there to come with us after that—your friends could come if they wanted!”

Kiko bit her lip. “I’m not sure, Kaede,” she said. “I don’t want to make anyone feel like a third wheel at all … ”

“Ple-e-e-e-e-e-e-ease?”

She bit her tongue just as quickly—she knew the doleful stare that was about to follow Kaede’s whine. “You don’t have to be so insistent that I bring you along,” she soothed. “There’s no need to make this sound like some sort of competition to see how many friends you can bring to meet your tutor.”

Kaede—who’d been on the verge of employing the saddest stare in her arsenal—promptly blinked it away. “It … kinda is,” she said, shuffling her polished white shoes on the floor with telltale awkwardness. “I’m being tutored with a boy who goes to the Wight School. I … might’ve bet him that I could find more friends than he could.”

 _The Wight School?!_ Kiko felt something twinge in her jaw. She’d not been to that Duel School, but what she knew of their Duelists left her in no small amount of shock that they’d managed to grasp Xyz Summoning in the first place. Let alone, she thought, that an LDS student had decided one of their student body was worth being tutored.

Kiko stared at the brass flower, still lying on the store counter, then to her room, visible from the railing above. She saw her clothes for the day still hanging from her door, where she’d put them last night—an elaborate copper-and-golden-brown ensemble that clashed magnificently with her prosthetic hand—and beyond that, on the edge of her dresser, the faint corner of a bright red Duel Disk.

Finally, she rolled her eyes. “All right—let me get my things,” she sighed, and Kaede danced where she stood in glee. “Sorry, Mom,” Kiko apologized on the way to her room. “I guess I’ll be back later than I thought. I’ll try to be back by dinner—I’ll call you if that changes.”

Her mother beamed. “Have fun!” She knew her daughter was more responsible than her age let on. Perhaps she’d been the same way in her youth, Kiko thought as she went upstairs to change.

* * *

“C’mon—you go up there!”

“No— _you_ do it! I’m too nervous!”

“Let’s Duel for it! Winner gets to ask him!”

“Don’t be silly—he’ll be gone by the time we’re done!”

From the table outside the coffee shop he frequented, Vladislav Roşu could see the trio of schoolgirls huddled on the street corner over the edges of the book in his other hand. He could hear their whispers clearly enough, owing to the relative lack of traffic during these daytime hours—and they only served to make his mood all the more sour.

He wasn’t sure if he wanted them to Duel or not. On the one hand, mused the Romanian boy as he took a sip of his latte—being exceedingly careful to not spill a drop—it would give him the time he needed to finish his drink and begin his daily routine. Perhaps if they took their time, he might even finish the chapter he was reading right now. On the other hand, if the girls decided to have their Duel right here, right now, it would cause enough of a spectacle that his entire train of thought would be derailed. He’d lose his place in _Carmilla_ , or end up spilling his coffee if one of their monsters’ attacks went awry … or they might just forgo the Duel and talk to him straightaway.

He liked that scenario even less than the ones before.

Roşu glanced at the window of the coffee shop, thinking it might be best to step inside and find an empty seat. He saw faintly the boy of seventeen—tall, pale, and skinny as a rail—reflected in the window, staring back at him from under his own ink-black hair, so meticulously trimmed, combed and washed that not a single strand of it was out of place. He looked past the freshly ironed black blazer and matching pants, specially tailored for him and him alone—

He blinked—the pin on his left collar was crooked again. The Romanian sniffed, reaching to align the insignia of the Duel School he attended for the tenth time today. It took five seconds before he was satisfied with his work—but the satisfaction had drained from his body just as quickly when he looked past his reflection in the shop window, and saw the lack of empty tables inside.

Roşu sniffed again; there was nothing else for it. He went back to his drink and his book, and absorbed himself in the latter as quickly as he could.

His dark gray eyes, narrowed in concentration, only managed to make their way down half the page before something moved on the other side of the table, just visible over the edge of the book. He sniffed a third time, swearing under his breath in his native tongue; he had a suspicion he knew who that might be.

With great care, Roşu set aside his drink, bookmarked his page, and adjusted his collar pin yet again before he felt prepared enough to give the interrupter his attention—or at least, as much as could be hoped for.

The girl was twelve, maybe thirteen, and dressed in what might have been the uniform of any school in this city. Her bobbed black hair reminded him of a friend he’d made in his school’s exchange program—one of a rare few he’d made in his time there—but all similarities ended there. The face beneath was a deep crimson, and two steps from full-on hyperventilation—and her hands were clasped to her breast so tightly that Roşu vaguely wondered if her heart was beating so quickly, it was about to vibrate its way out of her body.

“Are you … Brad-is-rab Ro-shu?” the girl asked breathlessly.

The Romanian felt a muscle twitch in his eye that went unnoticed by the girl. Perhaps she’d mistaken it for a wink; at any rate, she was too smitten at his appearance to know that asking her question had been her second strike. The first one had happened the moment she’d been smitten at all; Roşu liked such first impressions even less than he liked people attempting to pronounce his name—especially in this country.

“Just Roşu,” he replied, managing somehow to keep his voice indifferent. His European accent was thick, but smooth enough to make up for the coarseness of his language. “What you want?”

The girl hopped where she stood. She took a quick look at the street corner behind her; Roşu suspected her friends were there even before his gaze swiveled the same way, just for an instant. Sure enough, there they were, flashing silent thumbs-up to egg her on.

Somehow, it was enough. “I just wanted to say that I saw you Dueling at the Inter-Prefectural Championships earlier this month and I thought that you were the coolest Duelist there and your Deck was the coolest one there and if it isn’t too much to ask could you maybe teach me to be a cool Duelist like you?”

The girl said all this very fast, and without even pausing for breath. The end result was that by the time she got to her question, her voice had gone rather high-pitched, and her face had gone from beet red to berry blue in less time than it took to name all the colors of the rainbow in between. Roşu, through it all, said nothing, biting his tongue the whole time and pretending to sip his coffee.

By now, the girl was almost vibrating in place. “And … ” she managed to squeak, “m-maybe sign my Duel Disk?”

The Romanian resisted the urge to massage his temples with his free hand. _Strike three_. “ _Se comportă astfel de fiecare dată …_ ” he muttered to himself, thankful that the coffee cup muffled the vast majority of his words.

The girl had heard him, though, but did not understand, and had thus settled for tilting her head in confusion. “I am reading,” Roşu clarified, with the tiniest bite of impatience. “Come back later. We talk when I am done.”

He shooed the teenager away as if one might a dog. The schoolgirl didn’t even look abashed by the dismissal; she bounced in place with a barely suppressed squeal before scampering away to rejoin her friends. Roşu heard them jabber away at one another until well after they had disappeared around the corner.

Only then did he finally exhale. That had been less painful than he’d anticipated. He took another sip of his coffee, and then returned to his book—but for some reason, _Carmilla_ did not hold Roşu’s attention quite as much as he’d been hoping for. He could no longer concentrate on the words in front of him.

“Smooth moves, Dracula.”

Roşu had heard the voice before, and that was the only reason he stayed where he sat despite his surprise. Even then, his thin eyebrows had nearly disappeared into his ebon hair from the unexpected interruption behind him.

“You’re not going to be here when she gets back, are you?” Yashiki Yūrei asked. Even from out of the corner of his eye, Roşu could see the boy’s two-toned bangs sticking out a full foot in front of his face, freshly gelled into their usual bladelike shapes.

He huffed with disapproval, but did not turn around. “People like her … one look at me—one look at Deck—suddenly _gaga_ ,” grunted the Romanian. “What good are monsters, if not to be _feared_ , hmm?”

“Got me there,” shrugged Yūrei. He did not say anything for a while after that; Roşu took the time to drink some more coffee before the boy spoke again. “You know … I _could_ give you a reason not to meet her.”

“Mm?” Roşu had the impression Yūrei was choosing his words with an extreme amount of care.

“Sakuragi’s in your year, right?” He knew the name, and nodded. “He and a friend are getting some Xyz Duelists together later today. I thought you might want in.”

Roşu’s narrow eyes narrowed further still. “This friend … not another fan?” he ventured.

“I don’t even think he knows who you are,” said Yūrei. “He definitely didn’t mention you by name. And actually, now that I’m thinking about it,” he added, “I don’t think I even asked if he was from around here … ”

But Roşu was already draining the last of his latte. “Good enough for me.” He stood up, carefully tucking _Carmilla_ back in the black leather attaché case leaning against his chair—and then tucking the chair back against the table where he’d found it, a task that took all of fifteen seconds before he was satisfied. Then he’d fished out a mirror-polished Duel Disk, even darker in color than the attaché that contained it, from a separate compartment inside.

“Need to make text,” he said, finally turning towards Yūrei. “We leave now, hmm? Before gaga girls come back?”

Yūrei laughed. “You don’t have to tell me twice.” They walked off together. Such was their difference in height that the Wight Duelist had to take three steps for every two of his companion. “Who’re you texting?”

* * *

Even on its busiest of days, the Maiami City Museum of Natural History was sparsely populated. The largest of crowds often showed up with the onset of exam week for the university classes, with dozens of students making a twice-yearly trip to brush up on whatever they needed to for the grueling test that lay ahead. The last such trip had been a month ago; there were so few visitors here today that if two had been on opposing sides of the antechamber inside, they might have been able to hold a conversation with one another even at a whisper.

That was all to the better for the young woman inspecting today’s main exhibit: an overview of life during the Middle Cambrian Period. Her prominent jaw clenched as the pencil in her hand danced deftly over the sheet of paper held in her other hand, sketching out the trilobite fossil on the other side of the glass mere inches away. Beneath that was a tablet, whose screen—already glowing with the words of a lengthy essay in the making—reflected off the high cheekbones of her face, and the almond eyes set within, furrowed in concentration.

Not for the first time, Jong Bo-Yeon felt like she could live in this exhibit; she’d been a history buff almost since her days at primary school in South Korea. In middle school, her teacher had been startled at the report she’d written on the country’s Three Kingdoms; it had come very close to exceeding the combined length of the essays submitted by the rest of her class. By the time she’d had entered prep school, word of her appetite for the subject had spread to the point that one day, her world history teacher had offered to let _her_ do the job instead; Jong had thought he’d been joking until the headmaster had personally entered the classroom the following morning to say a definitive _no_.

But for Jong, the older something was, the more of a history it possessed—and thus, the more about it she wanted to learn. So when she’d taken biology classes for the first time, and learned exactly how long the planet on which she stood had been supporting life—and how quickly that life had evolved over the vast eons between then and now—the Korean had been hooked from the get-go. Now she was seventeen, very near eighteen … very near university schooling back home, where wholly new plateaus of knowledge awaited her voracious mind.

Her tablet chimed just then, breaking her concentration. Frowning, Jong withdrew the sheet of paper on which she’d been sketching her trilobite. A chat window had just opened up at the bottom of the screen:

Strig01: 바쁘니?

A small smile creased an edge of her mouth. _Roşu_. He wanted to know if she was busy. She glanced at the report she’d been typing, and then at the sketch in her other hand. Her project was just about finished up, as far as she was concerned. She typed as much to her pen pal, wondering what he was up to as she did so.

MissJ: 프로젝트를 마무리. 너는 어때?

She took the time to duck into an alcove; the last thing she wanted was to hold up traffic in the exhibit—such as it was, she thought as she glanced at the sparse crowds. By the time she’d found a place to sit down against the wall, Roşu had replied back.

Strig01: 사쿠라기는 회의를 잡고있다. 익숙한 얼굴이 좋을 것이다.

Jong stared, feeling her mouth crease in a frown. _Sakuragi?_ She knew who that was—a student in her year at LDS; just a bit younger than her, if she recalled correctly. She fingered the pin on her blouse collar absentmindedly.

She knew why Roşu wanted a familiar face for this so-called meeting, though. Jong had befriended the Romanian Duelist during the traditional meet-and-greet of the exchange program they attended together, and since then, she’d come to understand the stoic teenager in ways even most of their classmates at the Leo Duel School didn’t. But that still left the question of why Sakuragi Yū wanted to hold any sort of meeting involving him, as Roşu claimed—or her, for that matter—let alone what it was for. She decided to ask, and give herself time to think.

MissJ: 에 대한 회의는 무엇입니까?

It was almost a full minute before her friend responded back:

Strig01: 나는 잘 모르겠다. 새로운 친구에 대해 뭔가 및 XYZ 의 검투사 만.

Now Jong was puzzled. Roşu didn’t seem to know much more about this meeting beyond it involving a new friend of some sort, and that it was restricted to Xyz Duelists only. The latter was the more perplexing; for a brief moment, the Korean wondered if maybe the translation software in her tablet had gone on the blink in the midst of changing his native tongue to hers and back again, and was thus chopping up her friend’s replies.

But in spite of her confusion, Jong was nonetheless intrigued. She _was_ an Xyz Duelist, after all, and so perhaps that was why her friend had seen fit to pass along word of this meeting to her. But why limit it to just Xyz people? For that matter, where would it even take place? She typed out the question she knew would net the simpler response:

MissJ: 이 회의는 어디 있습니까?

As she anticipated: Roşu’s reply was much quicker this time, for the length it was—quick enough, in fact, that the Korean was ready to rule out any software glitches for the time being:

Strig01: 우리는 공원에서 만난다. 서두가 없습니다. 오기 전에 시간이 좀 걸릴 수 있습니다.

 _The park, huh?_ Jong was guessing he meant the city’s Central Park—in which case, that was only half an hour’s walk away—quicker still if she felt like taking the bus. Still, Roşu had said there wasn’t any rush—and more intriguingly, that there were likely to be more besides the two of them, plus Sakuragi and whatever “friends” he’d found. _I wonder how many more_ , she thought.

She glanced once more at the work she’d done. Her illustration was already far along that she could fill in the details later—and her report was a decent enough length that perhaps … if she found a stopping point … _yes_ …

She smiled, and began to type.

MissJ: 내가 여기서 끝낼 때 올께. 걱정마. 나는 오래 기다리게하지 않습니다.

She only needed to wait for five seconds. Then:

Strig01: 괜찮아. 그때 봐.

_사용자 Strig01_ _은_ _오프라인입니다._

Jong rose from her space against the wall once she’d seen the logoff message in her chat window. Then she closed that, and began making her way back to the exhibit she’d abandoned a few minutes ago, with somewhat more alacrity than before. _I might be able to squeeze in one more page by the time I’m ready to leave_ , she decided.

As she walked, her arm brushed against the book bag tucked behind her arm, feeling—just for a moment—the familiar shape of the Duel Disk tucked inside …

* * *

If the thought had ever crossed Jong’s mind as to where all the crowds at the museum might have gone, she might have found an answer at the east side of town, close to the shoreline.

So many people had flocked to the Maiami City aquarium—specifically, the show that was currently in full swing at its outdoor arena—that Kaede, Kiko, and a handful of girls the latter went to school with all considered themselves very lucky that they were able to find any seats that weren’t in the nosebleed section. Not that they were looking to find anything in the front rows; Kaede’s clothes, while toned down from her usual fare, were still fancy-looking enough that Kiko didn’t want to take chances. She was slightly less worried about her own clothes getting wet as she was her synthetic arm; she’d never thought to ask the staff of Lily’s whether the glove that currently covered it was meant to work in a “splash zone”.

“Look—look!” one of her friends squealed. “Here he comes, here he comes!”

Kiko tore her eyes away from her prosthetic just in time to see the gray blur streak up from the enormous tank of water in front of them.

The dolphin breached the surface, rocketing up some twenty feet, and finally slipping back into the water—all with barely a ripple. The whole time, they were close enough to see the black, chevron-shaped birthmark that lined the sleek creature’s left fin—the same size, and almost the same shape, as the blade of an average Duel Disk.

But the dolphin was not the only star of the show today. No less than seven women were in the pool with him: each one dressed up in mermaid costumes—one for each color of the rainbow—that glimmered and sparkled in the sunlight catching off the water. The oldest of them, a woman with curly purple hair about the same age as Kiko’s mother, tossed a fish from a nearby bucket into the tank—where the black-finned dolphin snapped it up eagerly as the crowd continued to _ooh_ and _ahh_ in delight.

The youngest didn’t look much older than Kiko herself. Long pink hair trailed behind her as she swam laps around an outcropping of rock the size of a house, in close formation with four of her companions—two either side of her. The Duel Disk on her arm—the same shade of sky-blue as most of her costume—was almost invisible against the walls of the tank, and the sparkling water inside; only the sea-green blade that shimmered along the girl’s arm made it visible at all. A set of numbers trailed alongside her, just barely in her wake (LP: 2600).

Kiko was quick to note the astonishing speed at which these women all darted, twisted and turned through the water. Even with assistance, most human swimmers could barely manage more than four or five miles an hour—yet every girl in this tank, regardless of their age, was easily swimming _twice_ that! Nor was she the only one to have noticed; she’d heard the surrounding spectators, during lulls in the action, mutter the same question to each other: _how on earth could a human being swim that fast?!_

At length, the pink-haired mermaid finally sprang up from the water to lounge on the rocks above. Across from her, the dolphin had paused at the other end of the tank from where those five mermaids swam. But there was plenty to see at this part of the watery stage as well: Kiko held her breath as she saw the cerulean-skinned creature bobbing just over the water’s edge, leering at the blue-clad mermaid with an ugly grin. Two more holographic displays shone above the water here—one over the dolphin itself (LP: 100), while the one above its armored back read (Level 4 » **3** : _ATK 1400 » **1600**_ /DEF 1200 » **1400** ).

“All right—I think he’s ready to show us what he can do!” the purple-haired woman belted out through the headset she wore. The crowd cheered in anticipation; several of the younger boys and girls had even started a chant.

“Ryota! Ryota! Ryota!”

No doubt the dolphin—Ryota—had heard the kids egging him on; he now circled a gigantic contraption—like the keypad of an old cell phone, blown up bigger than a car—filled with equally large keys of different colors. Just large enough, Kiko had seen earlier, for Ryota to nudge with his snout.

That was exactly what he did moments later, causing many things to happen in quick succession: with a quick dive, Ryota had bopped the center key—orange with a black circle and plus sign within. Seconds later, the monster near Ryota had vanished with a dazzling flash of light; Kiko was just able to see a seventh mermaid burst from within it, flipping in the air before gracefully vanishing beneath the water.

But just as quickly, something even larger had appeared within the tank—almost half the size of the tank itself, in fact: a bluish, serpentine behemoth that looked even uglier than its predecessor (Level 7 » **6** : _ATK 2600 » **2800**_ /DEF 1500 » **1700** ). The crowds gasped as one. One or two people even screamed.

“And it looks like Ryota’s Released his _Codarus_ to Advance Summon a _Levia-Dragon – Daedalus_!” said the woman in amazement. “Look at the size of that thing! I think Sea Angel might be sunk, kids!”

Kiko was almost ready to believe Ryota knew that, too; the dolphin’s mouth looked uncannily like a grin as it prepared to lunge upwards once again. The mermaid called Sea Angel, meanwhile, was staring at the massive monster in such shock that her jaw threatened to bounce off the rock on which she sat.

When it did, even Kiko couldn’t help but join the audience in a collective “Wow!” Ryota soared ten, fifteen, twenty—and then finally through the huge hoop suspended a full _twenty-five_ feet above the tank, which began to pulse with light the moment he’d done it.

Kiko wasn’t really sure what happened next. The _Levia-Dragon – Daedalus_ had flicked out its massive tail—and then, almost as quickly, all that could be seen of the tank was a massive wall of foamy water. It crested the Plexiglas walls with ease, completely soaking the first few rows of the audience who’d been brave and prepared enough to sit inside the “splash zone” of the arena, and making them shriek in combined surprise and glee.

When the wave subsided, all that could be seen in its wake was Ryota’s keypad, Ryota himself—skittering across the surface, obviously having the time of his life—and the mermaid called Sea Angel, splayed across the rocks in defeat (LP: 0).

But even as the crowds had fallen silent at the sight of the latter, Sea Angel sprang up, waving to the crowds with an enormous grin on her face—and then, almost on cue, the arena had erupted in cheers. Kiko and Kaede were trying in vain to be the loudest of them.

“What a comeback, folks!” bellowed the woman. “Let’s hear it for the best Duelist under the Seven Seas—Ryota, the Dueling Dolphin!” She tossed one—two—three fish into the air, each higher than the last; Ryota caught them all in the same acrobatic leap, spreading out the fin with its black birthmark for all to see.

Then he skated over to Sea Angel and her retinue of mermaids with his tail, reaching out with his other fin. Sea Angel bumped it with her outstretched hand, with each girl following suit—and then Ryota skated back to the woman, who tossed one last fish right into his mouth before bumping his fin as well in a “high-five”.

“I’d like to see that You Show kid pull _that_ off!” Kiko could barely hear herself shouting at Kaede, so loud were the crowds around them.

“I know, right?” Kaede’s grin was even wider than that of Sea Angel. “Hey—you showed me that girl Dueling Ryota earlier! You think we can meet her later?”

“We can try!” Kiko replied. “I don’t think they’ll let us backstage, but we can tell someone that works here. Maybe they can pass along word, and she can find us after the show!”

They stood up. “C’mon—we’ll wait outside for her,” Kiko told her as they began to leave. “Better if she doesn’t have to get through all these crowds first.”

* * *

It took the better part of an hour before the girl playing Sea Angel had stepped out of the aquarium, having replaced her costume with a sky-blue blouse, navy skirt and socks, and a kerchief tied round her neck of the exact shade of sea-foam green as her eyes. The look on her face, contrary to the cheerful one she’d donned for the show, was screwed up in annoyed concentration. Her pink hair, freshly toweled off, still drooped to one side as she tilted her head. This occupied her attention enough that she didn’t immediately see the two girls standing outside the door.

When she did, though, the way they were dressed made her forget all about the water she was attempting to coax out of her ears. Both were younger than she was: the smaller of them, the edges of her grin lost in more blonde hair than she’d thought a human head could support, looked more like she was dressed up for some kiddie fashion show than a trip to the aquarium. That wasn’t to say her brown-haired companion looked more appropriately dressed for the occasion, though: the copper-colored vest and maroon skirt she was wearing could only be described as “nineteenth-century punk”. The girl’s right hand was covered in a thick black glove that reached up to the elbow, and something she thought looked like a golden key dangled from around her neck.

The words her father had said earlier now sprang to mind: “ _… A couple girls came up to me during your show … darnedest outfits I’ve ever seen … said they wanted to meet you after … you’ll know them when you see them …_ ”

The teenager groaned. “Sorry—could you give me a sec?” Her voice was husky for a girl of fourteen. She gave her head an experimental shake for a few seconds, shielding her eyes from the sun’s glare, then finally sighed.

“Mm—that’s better. I had some water in my ears after that _Daedalus_ swamped me. Didn’t get it all out by the end of the show.” She stretched. “So—it’s you, then? You’re the girls my dad said wanted to meet me?”

“Uh-huh!” The smaller girl nodded enthusiastically, causing every ruffle in her wide dress to wobble with her. She noted this with a raised eyebrow—before her gaze suddenly settled on the little girl’s older friend.

“Wait a minute … ” She peered in for a closer look—something about the girl’s brown hair and blue eyes—and especially that black glove—looked familiar to her. “I’m not good with names, but I know I’ve seen _you_ before.”

She squinted. “You’re that left-hander out of Lily’s Duel School, aren’t you?” she asked. “Inter-Prefectural Championships, right? Ōsaka? Made it to the round of sixteen before Shijima Hokuto wiped the field with you?”

The girl cringed, blushing in embarrassment. “Yeah … not my best Duel,” she muttered. “At least my combo was nice while it lasted. Maki Kiko,” she introduced herself, then pointed to her still-smiling friend. “Okashi Kaede here has been my friend since before we started school. Not too long ago, someone who goes to the Leo Duel School started tutoring her.”

“Nice,” the teenager said—and she meant it, too. Tutoring in _Duel Monsters_ didn’t sound so bad if the person who was teaching you went to the right school. “Is that why you’re here, then? You want to see how far you’ve come by Dueling me?”

“Kind of,” said the girl called Kaede. “My tutor and I are both Xyz Duelists. Last night, he made a friend who was an Xyz Duelist, too. And he said he wanted us to find some Xyz Duelists in town so he could meet them, too.”

“I recognized you from your hair, when I first saw you in the show,” Kiko added. “You went to the Blue Sea Duel School, I think. I saw you Duel a couple times at the IPCs as well, Sea Angel—and I remember you using some Xyz Monsters, too. So I thought, ‘What the heck?’” she shrugged. “‘Let’s find her after the show!’”

“Yeah, well—fat lot of good those Xyz Monsters did me back then,” ‘Sea Angel’ grumbled. “I got all the way to the quarterfinals—and then some meathead from Ryōzanpaku knocks me left, right, and center. I was so bruised after that sorry excuse for a Duel that I couldn’t swim for _weeks_ after that!” She huffed. “I hope I live to see the day when that whole _school_ gets sanctioned out of existence.”

She offered a hand. “And I’m only Sea Angel when I’m in costume. Right now, I’m just Kiri—Minakami Kiri.”

Kaede returned the gesture enthusiastically. Kiri’s gesture to Kiko, on the other hand, was awkwardly fumbled when the latter girl abruptly decided to extend her ungloved hand instead.

Kiri decided then to voice a question that had been occupying her mind from the start of this encounter. “Uh—Kaede, was it?” The little girl nodded. “You say you’re an Xyz Duelist _and_ you’re being tutored by an LDS student who’s one himself?” Another nod. “Wow—you really lucked out, didn’t you? Xyz Duelists are supposed to be some of the more talented ones out there—and for LDS most of all. How’d you pull that off?”

“I’m not telling!” Kaede said in singsong, winking. “You’ll have to see for yourself!”

Kiko buried a hand in her face—but Kiri had seen the beginnings of an exasperated smile beneath. _That’s how it’s going to be then, is it?_

She heaved a sigh. “All right—be that way. I can play along for now. Just let me duck back inside and talk to my parents,” she said, heading back inside. “I think we can get someone to fill in for me while I’m gone.”

Kiko looked worried. “You think they’ll say yes?”

“Oh, I know they will,” Kiri replied, smiling. “I’m still in school, after all—I’ve had to cancel on them short-notice before. Study groups, Dueling practice, that sort of thing. My folks aren’t slave drivers—they know better.”

She waved, heading back inside. “Give me five minutes, I’ll be right out!”

No sooner had she closed the door, however, than Kiri began to feel a thoughtful frown creep onto her face as Kaede’s words sank in. _Was someone else watching me Duel?_

Perhaps it was this tutor she’d talked about—or even his new friend. She couldn’t help but wonder who that might be—though the notion that someone from the _Leo Duel School_ , of all places, might not only have noticed _her_ , of all people, but also apparently deemed her worthy of his attention, was no small boost of confidence to her self-esteem.

“If I pull this off, I could put Blue Sea on the map,” she said, half to herself. “In fact … I bet I could even teach LDS a couple things, too, if I impressed that girl’s tutor enough … ”

And with that thought, Kiri skipped down the hallway to meet her parents, already excited to think of what the afternoon might have in store for her.

* * *

Sakuragi Yū had planned as best he could. Which was a polite way of saying he’d planned exactly nothing at all.

It hadn’t occurred to him until he’d gone to bed last night that he should have exchanged his contact information with Kurokōri. That way, he could have spent this entire morning going over the details of his plan with him—such as those details were. Even this morning, as he’d showered and dressed himself, reorganized his Deck, gulped down his breakfast, and made sure his Duel Disk had been freshly maintained and its software fully updated, he was still kicking himself for not thinking of that one crucial detail.

Yū hoped this uncharacteristic lack of planning wouldn’t turn out to be a bad omen. But it had only been ten minutes into the journey from his house to Central Park, and the LDS Duelist hadn’t seen anything go wrong yet. His comb hadn’t broken when he’d used it this morning, and he’d waited until afterwards to trim his nails as well—

He shook his head. _You’re overthinking this_ , he chided himself. _The more you worry that something will go wrong, the more likely it is that it will. Just relax. Take a deep breath. It’s like the first meeting of a school club. Everyone meets each other for the first time, breaks the ice, and everything will go just f—_

“Hey.”

Yū nearly tripped over his feet at the unexpected intrusion—less than a foot behind him, somewhere off to his right. Only flailing his arms out of reflex kept him from overbalancing and promptly eating the sidewalk with his face.

Thankfully, the brakes of a passing bus let fly with a loud, pneumatic _hiss_ at the exact moment he swore at the top of his lungs. But Yū didn’t care if parents and children might have been around to hear it regardless—he was too busy rounding on the intruder to care.

Kurokōri, it seemed, had found a place to tidy himself up overnight—though where precisely he could go on short notice and even less _yen_ was a mystery. But he was clean-shaven now, and his raven hair looked rather neater than last night; it had been styled and slicked back into streamlined triangular spikes that made Yū think of the sharpened teeth lurking beneath the Xyz Duelist’s lips. The longest of them were streaked with the highlights of forest green he’d seen last night, and the dye looked so vivid that he wondered if Kurokōri had just come from a barbershop.

There was nothing to be done for the scar on his face, though. Or perhaps Kurokōri had decided nothing was to be done. Maybe, Yū decided, he was proud enough of it that a simple application of Kaede’s makeup and concealer would have detracted from the first impression he wanted to give off.

“Morning to you, too,” Kurokōri smiled back thinly. Yū was inwardly grateful that he’d at least taken one lesson to heart from last night; the Xyz Duelist hadn’t shown a hint of his filed teeth yet. He’d also apparently dispensed with his scarf and goggles, though, which Yū had been hoping he’d wear to avoid Kaede and Yūrei getting scared half to death by the sight beneath.

“I thought I’d given off the impression that I didn’t like being surprised,” the LDS Duelist said testily. “Especially this early in the morning.”

Kurokōri blinked. “You didn’t hear me? I’m not exactly quiet on my feet. I’d called out when I saw you pass by.”

 _Had he?_ Yū hadn’t heard a thing. But then, he had been rather deep in thought on the way over just now.

He shrugged it off. “So—you ready for today?”

Kurokōri nodded. “I could be asking you the same thing,” he said. “This is your party, you know. I’m just an observer—I sit in the corner and look pretty.”

Yū fought down a smirk. The “war wound” route might cut ice with a couple girls he knew, but he personally—privately—thought Kurokōri could have the world’s most perfect teeth and still look a long way from pretty.

“And talking of sitting in the corner,” Kurokōri went on, “I had a brainwave when I got up, about how we could start this whole party off. I figure as long as we’re on our way over together, we can bounce some ideas off our heads. Here’s what I’m thinking … ”

As the Xyz Duelist kicked off the running commentary on the inner workings of his mind, though, Yū found it much easier to focus his own thoughts on what might await him in the park—whether he would find more kids like the ones he taught, ambitious minds like the one he possessed … or more hardened sorts than even Kurokōri himself.


	5. V

V

By the time a nearby clock had struck noon, Kaede, Kiko, and Kiri had reached the largest park in the city, chatting amicably as they crossed the winding paths beneath the trees.

“ … and with Ryota,” Kiri was saying to Kaede, who was listening to her so raptly that Kiko was having to tap her shoulder all the time so that she didn’t bump into anyone, “Aoi—my oldest sister—taught us to do this so that we could tell him he was doing a good job.”

She cleared her throat—and then made a high-pitched, warbling noise that was far too shrill to be birdsong. “I had to practice that for a week before my mom would even let me get in the water with him,” she said, a little hoarsely. “Being around dolphins is more than just a job, Kaede. It’s a way of life. A lot of little girls think it’s the coolest thing to do in the world—and they’d be right, let me tell you—but there’s more that goes into it than meets the eye.”

“Wow … ” The Cuisine Duelist’s eyes were round as tea saucers and almost as wide.

“So—hang on.” Kiko pointed out a bench up ahead, resting beneath a particularly shady tree. “You mentioned your mom and your oldest sister just now—are you saying all those mermaids in the show we saw are your _family_?”

“Yep,” Kiri said airily. “I’m the youngest of six—all sisters. My parents said they gave up trying for a boy after I was born.” She smirked slightly at the astonished look on both girls’ faces, then continued on. “My dad is head of building security, and my mom helps plan out all our shows. She’s been around dolphins for longer than I’ve been alive. The aquarium in this city might as well be the family business at this point,” she added with a laugh.

“You think you’ll be in charge of it when you’re older?” asked Kiko. “My mom and dad say that’ll happen to me with their toy store when I grow up.”

Kiri shook her head. “I don't think so. Aoi’s the oldest, so it’ll probably be her someday. That’s one good thing about being the youngest—they don’t expect as much from you as they might from your bigger sisters.”

She stretched. “Still … when I was little, I remember my mom bounced the idea around about us doing a traveling show with our whole mermaid gig. But then I got interested in Dueling and … well, too many commitments can tie you down, so we ended up staying here to help out at the aquarium. I’ve been teaching my sisters the basics of the game ever since. And,” she smiled, as they reached the bench, “I like to think I’ve bridged the gap because of it.”

The bloomers underneath Kaede’s dress made a _foof_ noise when she sat down beside Kiko, who’d sandwiched herself between her and Kiri. “Bridged the gap?” Kaede repeated, pulling off her white shoes.

“Oh, yeah.” Kiri’s smirk grew wider. “The Blue Sea Duel School didn’t get its name for nothing. They weed out applicants with water-based physical tests.” She began ticking off fingers. “How fast you can swim, how deep you can dive, how long you can hold your breath—and after all that, how well you can multitask while you’re at it.”

Kiko blinked owlishly. “So that show at the aquarium wasn’t all the way scripted, is what you’re saying,” she said. “Your Sea Angel getup wasn’t just for show—you can actually swim _and_ Duel at the same time?”

Kaede, who’d pulled out a dainty cloth with which to polish the shoes in her hand, goggled in disbelief. She was looking up and down at the Blue Sea Duelist, apparently unable to figure out how such a feat could be possible.

Kiri, for her part, merely shrugged. “ … Something like that. Obviously, it’s hard to do that if you’re actually in the water—but it does help when your Duel Disk and the cards in your Deck are completely waterproofed.” She shifted the purse hanging from her arm a little, allowing both girls to get a better look at the device inside. “It’s … easier if I show you,” she added, perhaps seeing Kaede’s inquisitive expression. “I hope I get the chance to do that today.”

“Mm-hm!” agreed the little girl.

They sat in silence for a while after that, stretching their legs after the journey from the aquarium. Kaede was dividing her attention between the shoes she was polishing and the park around them. She looked left and right—even past the trees and, at one point, under the bench they were sitting on.

“Where _is_ he?” she muttered as a loose group of joggers ran past them.

Kiko had noticed her friend’s odd behavior. “You mean the guy who’s tutoring you?” she asked. “Could be he’s running late. But I don’t think you ever mentioned what time he was going to be meeting us, did you?”

Kaede shook her head. “Nah, it’s the boy he’s tutoring me with. He’s … kind of a weirdo.”

Kiri sniffed, leaning back against the bench. “If he’s from the Wight School like you said, I wouldn’t be shocked.”

“Wow—rude much?”

No one was really quite sure about the exact order of the events that ensued. Kiri had only remembered hearing someone speaking in a raspy voice one moment—directly above her left ear, very much out of nowhere. The next moment, she’d let fly with an earsplitting shriek that startled a flock of birds in the branches above, as well as several of the joggers that had passed them earlier.

She’d leapt off the bench and whirled around at the exact same time as a flailing Kiko, narrowly missing the girl’s gloved hand clipping her cheek. Kiri got a brief glimpse of the person who owned that voice—a lanky boy about the same size as Kiko, hanging upside down from one of the branches of the tree under which they’d been resting—right before the hand she’d managed to avoid clocked him right in _his_ cheek, sending him off his perch with a yelp. He landed in a tangled heap of limbs and a _thud_ that was mercifully cushioned by the grass beneath.

Kiko, still wide- and wild-eyed from the unexpected interruption, immediately clapped her other hand to her mouth once she realized what had happened. “Sorry—sorry!” she cried out hurriedly. “I didn’t mean to hit you, I swear!”

“Speak for yourself!” Kiri was clutching her chest, trying in vain to calm her thudding heart. “There’s a thing called personal space—have you heard of it, you little _creep_?!” she hollered at the boy behind the bench.

Kaede hadn’t even turned around; she still polished her shoes where she was sitting. “Hiya, Yūrei,” she said, as casually as if she’d just bumped into him on the street. There was no reply save for a long, pained groan behind her.

Rational thought caught up with Kiko at that point. “Wait—hold on. Was _that_ the guy you were talking about?”

“Yep! Why’d you think I was looking everywhere? I wanted to be sure he wouldn’t scare you two!” Kaede peered behind the bench. “You okay down there, Yūrei?”

Another groan.

Kiri glared at Kaede. “ _Mission accomplished_.” Her clenched teeth did little to keep the sarcasm out of her words.

A hand clutched the bench just then, hauling its owner to his feet. Kiri felt herself gawk at the sight in spite of her anger: the boy was even more outlandishly dressed than both Kiko and Kaede combined! A _Black Crystal_ T-shirt—no doubt for one of those bands her parents would never let her listen to in a million years, judging by the design—clung tightly to his gangly frame, but that was about the most normal thing about his clothes. Everything else, from the boy’s heavy black boots and torn skinny jeans—held up with no less than _three_ studded belts, she couldn’t help but notice—to the thick bands around his neck and right arm, was nothing but spikes, leather, or both. Most bizarre of all was his colorful hair: even with the slick, purplish-pink bangs, each long enough to spear her, there was still hair to spare—he’d gathered that into a ponytail. She felt a stab of envy; this boy’s hair was almost as long as hers.

 _Almost_.

“You look _ridiculous_.” The words tumbled out of her mouth against her will, but it was true—and the angry purple bruise now blossoming across the boy’s cheek only drove that point home.

The boy called Yūrei stood now, holding the bench for support. Gray eyes blinked woozily as they tried to focus on Kiko. “Why’d you … hit so hard?” he managed to rasp.

That was as far as he got before a slim hand grasped him by his collar and spun him around. The hand’s owner—a tall girl in her late teens, and perspiring enough that Kiri assumed her to be one of the joggers that had passed by just now—looked hopping mad. One glance at her severe expression told Kiri she’d seen everything that had happened.

“Because,” the new arrival was growling through clenched teeth, “in case you haven’t noticed, people _don’t like it_ when strangers pop up out of nowhere, thinking nobody else knows they’re there. Especially,” she added, “if those people are _girls_ , and those strangers are _boys_.

“So _you_ don’t need to apologize,” she said to Kiko—before turning her scornful gaze on Yūrei. “ _You_ , however … ”

“I still feel bad that I hit him!” Kiko protested. “I flail around a lot when I get startled—it’s not the first time that—”

She broke off. Her eyes had flicked to her gloved right hand—which Kiri had just now noticed was twitching oddly. Instantly, Kiko’s expression had soured. “Aw, _now_ look what you did!” she cried at Yūrei. “You made me break my hand on your thick skull! I just had this fixed a week ago!”

The older teen whirled around at this so rapidly that her bobbed black hair, slick with sweat, whipped into her face. “I’ll call for an ambulance!” she coughed—only to stutter to a halt as Kiko’s outburst sank in. “Wait— _fixed?!_ ”

Barely a moment later, her puzzlement had morphed into outright bewilderment—as did Kiri’s own—when Kiko grasped her right forearm, twisted at the wrist … and physically _pulled off her hand_.

“Hold this,” she said dispassionately to Kiri, offering her the detached limb. The Blue Sea Duelist, still swaying where she stood, took it by the palm as if it were a fragile egg that might shatter if she let it shift even slightly.

Kiko leaned in, unrolling the glove to reveal an antique-looking hand of what looked like polished brass and steel. The fingers were spindly, almost skeletal in their design, and had twisting patterns embossed in the metal.

Reason returned to Kiri then. “A prosthetic?” she heard herself say from far away as she stared at the gloved stump where the arm in her hands had once been.

“Yeah.” Kiko did not even look up at her as she peered inside her arm’s socket. “I was born without my right hand. No bad car wreck or anything like that—it just … never formed. Kaede and I have been friends since before we started school. We hang out at my mom and dad’s toy store after class a lot. So of course she knows all about it.”

Kiri tore her gaze away for a split second—just long enough to see Kaede still sitting where she was, apparently unruffled by everything that had happened over the past couple of minutes—and then she was back to staring at Kiko. Or, at least, Kiko’s whole left hand, its fingers darting here and there with incredible speed and precision.

“You didn’t think to tell me anything about this on the walk over?” Her dazed voice sounded as though she was hearing it from far away. “You had all this time to do that!”

Kiko shrugged with her right shoulder, still focused on her false hand. “Dueling underwater sounds a lot more interesting to me than Dueling with only one hand. I didn’t want to hog the spotlight when I’d only just met you.”

The newcomer, meanwhile, seemed to have forgotten her anger at Yūrei completely. Her head tilted quizzically as she inspected the false hand. “You … you can Duel with this?” she asked.

“You bet I can!” Kiko beamed. “I had to learn the game one-handed at first, though. And I didn’t have my own Duel Disk until last year, either. There aren’t enough left-handers in the world for their designs to be in demand. Oh—there we go!” The fingers of her detached hand had suddenly twitched, at which point Kiko inserted the stump of her right arm inside the socket. A few moments later, the fingers began to open, close, and smoothly flex.

“That’s better,” she smiled. “Anyway, I told you before that Lily’s Duel School isn’t all the way a Duel School, Kiri—that mostly we help disabled kids learn to play _Duel Monsters_. They have this ‘buddy system’ thing, see. When you enroll, you get paired up with somebody about your age that needs long-term care, like someone who can’t go to school because they’re sick and in the hospital. Or they’re stuck in a wheelchair because of a bad injury they got when they were younger. And then you take some time out of your day to keep them company. Maybe you catch a movie or cook something for them. It’s not always about teaching them out to play the game.”

Kiri nodded thoughtfully. So did the woman they’d just met. “What about”—the latter chewed her tongue for a long moment, trying to find the right words—“developmental conditions? Does your school take that into account?”

Kiko needed a long moment to think about that. “ … I’m not the person you want to ask that question. A lot of this stuff gets left to more qualified people—parents and teachers, doctors and caregivers. But we do have some kids like that, both as students and as buddies. I mean, my buddy’s nonverbal and bedridden—she’s about Kaede’s age, _loves_ animals. I helped her pass the entrance exam to Lily’s just a few weeks ago. She’s been doing the online courses until she’s well enough to move about on her own.”

The newcomer’s expression softened, and a smile briefly twitched on her lips before her confusion returned. “That’s certainly nice and all—but what does all that have to do with your arm?”

“Every month or so, Lily’s does an in-school tournament for anyone who wants to try Dueling in an Action Field,” Kiko explained. “Then, whoever wins them gets specialized equipment for whatever condition they might have. I won one of those tournaments a couple months after I enrolled there, and they helped my parents get both my arm and my Duel Disk custom-ordered for me. Look!”

She produced a Duel Disk from her purse: a vivid, fire-engine red, with its slots for the Main and Extra Decks switched around to accommodate her dominant left hand. Kiko hovered it over her freshly repaired arm for just a moment—and then the Duel Disk jumped right onto the prosthetic as if yanked there by an invisible hook.

“Yep—contained-field magnetics,” she said, as if reading Kiri’s thoughts. “Helps keep it in place during an Action Duel.” She demonstrated this by activating the device, causing a bright green blade to shimmer along her forearm, and then waggling it in several directions. The Blue Sea Duelist was impressed—the Duel Disk didn’t even shift.

“Handy.” Kiri immediately cringed when the double meaning of what she’d said caught up with her—but Kaede had beaten her to it; the little girl was giggling madly at her unintentional pun.

“Even so, I’d think a prosthetic wouldn’t look so … antiquated,” the older teen was musing in the meantime. There was something off about her accent that Kiri couldn’t quite place. “I’m not trying to sound insulting, by the way—I’m just wondering why you chose this design in the first place.”

“I said my parents own a toy store,” said Kiko. “So on top of pretty much living and breathing the things since the day I was born, I’ve been fixing them for half my life, too. My favorites are always those older antique ones—toys that you’d need something like _this_ for, just to turn them on, make them work.”

She pulled out a necklace from beneath her blouse; Kiri thought the trinket dangling beneath looked like an old wind-up key. “I like to tinker sometimes,” Kiko told them, “to see what makes those old toys tick. So when Lily’s 3D-printed this, I told them to use an antique design with some fiddly-bits here and there, so I wouldn’t get bored.”

“So … Yūrei didn’t _really_ break your hand?” Kiri wanted to know.

“Nah. I just shifted a wire when I flailed into him. If he actually _had_ broken this thing, he’d be needing a new hand of his own—and since he’s not a Lily’s student, he’d be paying for both my hand _and_ his as well,” Kiko added with a warning glare at the embarrassed boy. “And _good luck_ winning enough tournaments to pay for them both.”

“Ugh … no wonder I feel like I got hit by a truck.” Yūrei rubbed gingerly at the swollen mass that now dominated his right cheek. “Look … I’m sorry. I only wanted a laugh—I didn’t want to hurt you or anything. I … actually think it’s cool that you have that hand.”

“Yeah? Keep talking and I might just make sure you need that hand _now_ ,” Kiko said testily, making Yūrei grab his wrist reflexively. “I’m Kiko, by the way—Maki Kiko,” she said to the newcomer. “That’s Okashi Kaede from the Cuisine Duel School”—she pointed out Kaede, who waved back—“and that’s Minakami Kiri from Blue Sea.”

Kiri extended a hand to the teenager, who shook it warmly. “Good to meet you, Miss, um … ”

“Jong—Jong Bo-Yeon,” was the reply. “Youth Division—Leo Duel School, Busan branch.”

This earned several reactions: Kaede was _ooh_ ing; Kiko and Yūrei were equally slack-jawed—and Kiri felt several puzzle pieces in her brain clip into place: namely, the distinctive LDS pin on the young woman’s shirt collar that she had just now noticed, and above that, the jawline and high cheekbones framed by her curtains of ebony hair.

“Busan … ” She had to think back to her middle school’s geography classes before it clicked. “You’re Korean?”

The girl called Jong nodded. “This is my last year with the exchange program,” she said. “I’m the oldest student in it—so everyone usually calls me _Miss_ Jong to make me feel even older,” she added, rolling her eyes and giving off a pleasant-sounding laugh. “Six months from now, I’ll be of age. After that is graduation—and then it’s off to Seoul for my bio/geo major, and hopefully somewhere in Vancouver for grad school after that. I might even try to eke out a semi-pro career along the way.”

Kiri felt a sudden respect for Jong—here, it seemed, was a woman who knew what they wanted to do in their life, even as being part of the most famous Duel School in the country had saddled her with enough commitments as it was. “What’s all the way in Canada for you, though?” she wanted to know.

“Fossils. ” Jong grinned. “I’m a history buff—I’ve been one since I was a kid. Somewhere along the way, I got tired of studying human history and moved on to _natural_ history. Modern humans have only existed for a few hundred thousand years or so—compared to the millions and millions of years that the dinosaurs and the trilobites were around, that’s a blink of an eye. There’s a lot more of the subject to study than school gives it credit for.”

“Wow,” said Kiko. “What drew you to history in the first place?”

Jong’s smile became softer, more wistful. “I like old things. Antiques, artifacts—fossils, like I said; museums … I like thinking about all the stories they can tell you. It’s like stepping into somebody’s living room for the first time, and looking at all the little knickknacks they have inside. You start wondering how long they’ve owned them—how much of that person’s life is tied up in this one small, insignificant treasure that wound up in their house.”

“Sweet!” Kaede had finished polishing her shoes, and now bounced over to Jong with a toothy grin on her face. “I guess you got lotsa stories to tell us, huh?”

Jong’s smile vanished as suddenly as the light of a blown-out bulb. “I’m seventeen, not seventy,” she said flatly at the still-grinning Kaede.

“My grandma’s seventy,” Kaede replied back, “and she runs her own bakery!”

“Here we go … ” Kiri heard Yūrei say. Kiko was seen to roll her own eyes, too; Kaede had all but told her entire life story to the Blue Sea Duelist on the way to the park—and nearly without stopping for breath. Kiri was willing to believe that the little girl thought her grandma’s life was also a story worth telling to anyone who would listen.

“She taught me how to make these just last week!” The Cuisine Duelist had now produced a plastic baggie from somewhere Kiri couldn’t see, and brandished it at Jong. Inside were a few puzzle piece-like treats, and a few crumbs left over from those that the three girls had eaten on the way over. “It’s her very own recipe—want one?”

Jong frowned. Yūrei sidled up to her. “I’d take it if I were you,” he said, quietly enough that the Korean wouldn’t jump ten feet in the air like Kiri and Kiko nearly had earlier. “She’ll hold it against you till then.”

Apparently Jong could think of no real answer to this, as she shrugged and extended a slim hand. Kaede wasted no time in fishing inside the baggie with her own stubby fingers and plopping a puzzle piece in the other girl’s palm.

Gingerly, the Korean nibbled at this—and within moments her almond eyes were wide. “ _Neomu dal-a!_ ” she said incredulously. “How much sugar did you _put_ in this?!”

Kaede was still grinning. “I have _no_ idea!”

Kiri merely nodded to herself—that had been her reaction as well. Nor was she sure that she wanted to know how much sugar a hyperactive ten-year-old was willing to put into the first thing she’d cooked with her own two hands.

“I heard her say once that her grandma only has one tooth,” Yūrei piped up, “and that it’s her _sweet_ tooth.” This earned a look of renewed concern from Jong at the pastry in her fingers, but she managed to finish it a few moments later. “Yashiki Yūrei,” he introduced himself. “Sorry if we, um … got off on the wrong foot. Yū’s been … well, he’s _trying_ to help me break the habit.”

“It’s all right,” Jong said, though she was still eyeing the Wight Duelist’s strange appearance with a concerned eye. “So—Sakuragi’s teaching you how to Duel?”

“Well—to Duel _better_ ,” Yūrei replied. “He’s a good teacher—he helped me plan a new combo yesterday that I’m hoping to use for my Dueling exam next week. But I still haven’t figured out a way to beat his Deck—neither has Kaede, actually,” he added, watching the little girl wolfing down another puzzle piece from her baggie. “I think Yū’s probably the best Duelist in Maiami City who _isn’t_ part of the Lancers—the way he plays the game is just _so_ much different from how the two of us do it. He’s just … _cool_.”

“Have you seen him around yet?” Jong asked—ever since she’d arrived, she hadn’t seen the any sign of the boy’s telltale lavender bangs. “If he called us here in the first place, I’d think he’d have showed up _first_.”

Yūrei frowned. “What I want to know is where’s the guy _I_ found? I made a bet with Kaede that I’d find more Duelists to meet us than she could,” he explained, “and she’s met _three_.” He cast a crestfallen look at the little girl.

“Two, actually,” said Jong, shaking her head. “I’d never seen her before in my life until literally just now. But I did come with another person, though. He should be—” She broke off, looking around the spot where they had all clumped together. Kiri thought she saw a look of annoyance creasing the Korean’s mouth.

“Ugh— _geuneun-i ttaemada suhaeng_ ,” Jong muttered, massaging her temples before turning around. “Roşu, stop skulking around and come on out! They’re just _kids_ —I promise, they’re not going to hurt you!”

Beside her, Kiri saw Yūrei freeze where he stood. His gaze was traveling from her to Kiko to Kaede and back again, with what the Blue Sea Duelist belatedly realized was a mixed expression of excitement and sudden unease. Seconds later, Kiri’s attention was distracted again by something moving behind the tree across from their bench.

Then that something stepped out in full—and Kiri felt her entire body swaying where she stood in absolute shock.

The boy was Caucasian, and definitely older than she was—possibly Jong’s age—but that didn’t seem to concern her at the moment. He was incredibly attractive— _breathtakingly, even_ , Kiri thought with a swallow. Everything about him, from his tall, rail-thin build, and the pale hands jammed inside the pockets of his spotless black pants, to the narrow eyes and neatly combed hair that looked blacker still, made her wonder if this boy … this _man_ … had stepped right out of Aoi’s favorite _shōjo_ manga before stepping out from behind that tree.

_Who is this guy—and where has he been all my life?!_

Kiko and Kaede, in the corner of her eye, looked equally thunderstruck. The elder of the pair was beet-red in the face, fanning herself with her hand. Kaede was heard to murmur, “He looks like Tuxedo Mask … but _taller_ … ”

Then the boy’s eyes had flicked upwards to stare back at them—and the Blue Sea Duelist later thought that it was almost as though a switch had been flipped somewhere inside his brain. Immediately, he had turned on the heels of his polished black shoes and started walking down the path—away from them—without uttering a single word.

He’d walked about fifteen feet by the time Kiri became fully aware of her own thoughts just now. But her sudden embarrassment, thankfully, went unnoticed; Jong had rolled her eyes—as had Yūrei, much to her surprise—and the Korean had hurried after him.

“Roşu, wait—!” But before Jong could finish, the boy—Roşu—had spun around. His eyes burned with extreme discomfort, if not outright anger—which surprised Kiri even more.

“ _Refuz să fiu în aceea şi cameră ca şi acei idioţi_,” he growled in a language she didn’t know. But the way he was gesturing at her—and Kiko and Kaede as well—made Kiri suspect that whatever he was saying wasn’t good. Both girls seemed to realize this, too; they looked just as embarrassed as she had felt just now.

“You watch your language,” Jong said sternly. “They don’t know any better—”

“They should,” Roşu snapped. “Did not come here to be _feast for eyes_.” He muttered something else under his breath that Kiri couldn’t make out, regardless of what language it might have been.

Jong, however, was much closer—and whatever Roşu had said was plainly the wrong thing she wanted to hear.

“ _Vlad_!”

The single word cracked like a whip in the air. A stunned Kiri felt as if that whip had just cracked right next to her ear. It had the desired effect, though; Roşu was suddenly giving the Korean his full attention.

A slim finger stabbed the air. “ _Ulineun iyagi hal geos-ida_ ,” declared Jong—and without further ado, she went to the tree under which Roşu had first emerged, dragging him behind her. Before long, they were having a whispered conversation that Kiri couldn’t hear—but clearly a heated one on Jong's part, judging by how animated her arms had rapidly become.

A very awkward silence had descended upon the path by the time Kaede voiced the question they were all thinking. “ … What just happened?”

“What the heck was _his_ problem?” Kiko ventured. “Who is he?”

“His name’s Vladislav Roşu.” Yūrei had stepped beside them. His face looked unusually dour—and Kiri somehow thought that the strain on his face of trying to pronounce such a strange name had little to do with it. “He’s from LDS, too, if you didn’t see the pin on his shirt—Bucharest branch.”

Kiri hadn’t. She recognized the word ‘Bucharest’, though— _Romania_ , her geography classes answered again from the depths of her memories. _So he’s another exchange student_.

“If you know what’s good for you,” Yūrei was saying, “call him by his last name. He doesn’t like it when people say his first name here. Everybody always gets it wrong—and he doesn’t have the patience to correct them.”

Kiko was staring at the Wight Duelist as though she’d just met him all over again. “Wait—you _know_ that guy?!”

Yūrei nodded. “He’s the guy I wanted to bring with me today for this meeting with Yū. I met him at a tournament last year—a weekly thing at a small-time card shop near where I live. He’d just arrived in Japan back then—he and this Miss Jong must know each other from that exchange program she talked about.” He frowned. “I remember Roşu told me I was the first person in this country he’d ever met who liked him—and his Deck—for more than what they looked like. We’ve been … sorta-kinda friends ever since.”

The way he wiggled his wrist at this made Kiri think even Yūrei wasn’t sure what this Romanian Duelist thought of him. “What’s that supposed to mean?” she asked.

“Yeah,” Kaede chirped. “How can you be ‘sorta-kinda’ friends with somebody?”

Yūrei let fly with a long sigh. Kiri had the impression he was doing some deep thinking. It looked like hard work.

“Roşu … doesn’t like to be around people,” he finally replied. “He likes his own company more than anyone else’s. It isn’t just ‘cause he’s not from around here—it’s not even just because even being close to other people is mentally exhausting for him. It’s because of what those people always end up thinking when they first meet him.”

He narrowed his gray eyes at the trio. “You’re not the first girls I’ve seen go head-over-heels for him; I saw him shoo off a teenager earlier this morning who wanted him to sign her Duel Disk. I was about to scare her off myself because I knew how much she was annoying him.”

Kiri felt a fresh wave of humiliation flush her cheeks again. “But … have you _seen_ him, though?” Kiko spluttered. “Why _wouldn’t_ a girl get a crush on him? Look at the way he dresses—even my dad doesn’t have a suit like that!”

“Oh, Roşu knows he’s good-looking,” said Yūrei. “But girls and whatever crushes they have on him have nothing to do with it. He doesn’t dress up to get their attention—or even because he wants to look good.” A pause. “He dresses up because some part of him thinks he _needs_ to. I think it’s OCD or something.”

Now that he mentioned it, Kiri had noticed how neatly the boy was dressed, even in this warm weather. Even in the romantic dates described by the dog-eared light novels on her bedroom bookshelf, there was always some element of relaxation—of _comfort_ —with how both the boyfriend and girlfriend dressed and behaved themselves.

None of that had been seen within Roşu when they’d first met him. He hadn’t felt relaxed—he hadn’t even felt _comfortable_. _No wonder he stormed off like that!_ Kiri now realized.

The Blue Sea Duelist now felt the cold sweat of mortified shame trickling down her neck as Yūrei went on, “ … So if you _really_ want to be his friend, then you’ll have to accept that about him. Otherwise he won’t even give you the time of day—like you saw just now.”

Kiri swallowed—but by then, Jong and Roşu were already heading out from the tree and back towards them.

Now that she had a good look at him, Kiri noticed that the boy’s body language looked very closed off indeed—his lips were pursed, and his hands were jammed even further into his pockets—but at least he was looking them in the eye this time, and therefore, perhaps, that he knew how bad they all felt at their first impression going so badly awry.

A glint of light on the collar of the Romanian’s blazer caught her eye, and she saw a pin identical to Jong’s perched there. So Yūrei had been right—he too, then, was indeed part of LDS. For some reason, this made Roşu feel even less approachable to Kiri; no doubt he was an élite Duelist if he’d managed to earn that pin—certainly a few levels above where she was now.

At a nudge to his chest from Jong, Roşu began to speak. “Sorry,” he grunted. “Do not like people staring.”

His European accent was thick but rich underneath every word he spoke— _focus_ , Kiri thought hurriedly. “ … We’re sorry for staring in the first place,” she said truthfully. “I’m Kiri—that’s Kiko and Kaede.” She introduced the two girls with a wave of her arm; they waved back at Roşu, but the Romanian gave no sign of returning the gesture.

“Yūrei here told us a little bit about you, Roşu,” Kiko chimed in. The narrow eyes flicked over to the Wight Duelist, who nodded. “It sounds like you two go back a ways. Is there anything else you want to tell us about yourself? Break the ice with this bunch of oddballs?”

Roşu only shrugged at this, and said nothing. “Don’t take it personally,” Jong hurriedly said. “I’ve known Roşu longer than all of you, and that’s probably why he’s being so chatty right now.”

 _Chatty?!_ Kiri privately—and perhaps, she thought, wisely—declined to ask what sort of definition Jong’s surly friend had for ‘quiet’. “He’ll open up when he wants to,” continued Jong. “Just don’t put any pressure on him.”

Kaede offered her baggie of snacks—what few of them were left, anyway. “You hungry?”

Roşu waved a hand in decline. “Had coffee.” The Cuisine Duelist looked put out at the refusal, but retreated her bag back into her purse at a look from Kiko.

“So—Sakuragi,” said the Romanian. “Is meeting us with friend, yes?”

“That’s right.”

Kaede and Yūrei sat bolt upright at the voice in the distance they’d just heard. Kiri followed their gaze, and saw two people heading up the path towards them. She didn’t know either of them, but the nearer of the pair—tall and thin, though not as much as Roşu, and with light purple bangs slightly longer than the Romanian’s black hair—was close enough for her to see some details. Namely, the LDS pin on his white jacket that, having seen it up close twice in one day, was now much easier for her to spot at a distance. This, then, had to be Sakuragi Yū.

The figure at Yū’s side looked about the same age as him and Roşu, but stood between the two boys in height, and was noticeably more muscular. Spikes of black hair—longer and wilder than that of his companion, and tinted with dark green—sprouted from his scalp like the spines of a hedgehog. The face they framed—Kiri gawked at the scar that carved from nose to cheek; _what on earth could have done that to his face?!_ she wondered—was rough and weathered, and yet the strange yellow-green eyes within, sunken in their sockets, bore a flame whose intense heat the Blue Sea Duelist could feel even from where she stood.

Kiri’s first thought was that this boy had seen some really bad stuff in his life—yet was still determined to survive it. Or, more ominously still, to _avenge_ it—no matter what he had to do … or what he had to sacrifice. She swallowed, hoping that said sacrifice wouldn’t end up being her.

“We were behind another tree the whole time,” Yū explained to them, gesturing to his companion. “It was his idea—if you’d gone ten more feet, Roşu, you’d have spotted us behind the next tree on your right.”

He waved to Kaede and Yūrei. “How’s it going, you two?” The two kids waved back.

Kiri frowned. “You were hiding from us?” That seemed an odd thing for a tutor to do. “Why?”

“Kiri, was it?” The voice of Yū’s cohort—the Blue Sea Duelist didn’t feel ready to use the term “friend” just yet—was gravelly and deep for someone of his age and build. It sounded heavy—both emotionally and physically. That impression of being a survivor—an avenger—was starting to sound a lot more certain.

“I wanted to see how you’d get along with each other,” said the boy, “to let you break the ice before you met the two of us. That sense of camaraderie should always be the first thing you look for in any group with a common goal.”

He smiled at them—perhaps in the hope of winning them over with a non-threatening gesture. Unfortunately, Kiri and everyone else had seen the teeth that composed that smile—and the sharp-looking triangles beyond the boy’s lips looked about as far away from non-threatening as the human body could possibly be.

The Blue Sea Duelist privately thought she had seen more charming smiles at the Maiami City aquarium’s shark exhibit. Nor was she alone in her shock and disgust; Kiko and Jong had each taken a step back, visibly—and quite understandably, Kiri thought—unnerved at the sight. Kaede was wide-eyed, and gulped loudly, making a “t-t-t-t-t-t” noise through her teeth, which were now chattering so noisily in spite of the warm weather that the petticoats underneath her gown were vibrating. Roşu’s eyebrows had practically melted into his jet-black bangs with how high they were raised—and Yūrei’s jaw was so slack that it was dangerously close to bouncing off the pavement.

“Cool … ” he could only say, his voice hushed and his eyes wide. He did not seem to notice that half a dozen different people had slowly turned his way with a look of total disbelief. “ … Can I do that with my teeth?”

Kiri felt one of her eyebrows twitching. “Yūrei,” she said flatly, “if you actually do that to your teeth, I will literally drop everything I do at the aquarium _and_ at Blue Sea so that I can study to become a _dentist_ , just so I can make you my first patient. I’m going to call you into my office, strap you in my chair, gas your idiot face to high heaven—and _then_ , I’ll use every last _second_ of our appointment to make sure you regret ever doing such a stupid, _stupid_ thing.”

Yūrei cringed. “You could’ve just said no … ” he muttered, loud enough for everyone to hear.

“Kiko’s already had to fix her arm once today thanks to you, _bonehead_ ,” Kiri shot back. “I’m not taking any chances; I’m making sure you get a mental image that’ll stick in anyone’s brain. Even yours.”

“Why on earth would you even _do_ that, anyway?” Jong asked, still eyeing the mouth of filed teeth as though it was inches away from her own neck. “Tattooing your face is one thing, but this is another! What was it that made you decide to do this to your own teeth?”

The boy was still smiling, but he closed his lips enough to hide those fangs of his. “You didn’t tell them?”

Yū shook his head. “I didn’t even know half these people’s names until just now,” he replied.

The boy smirked. “Well … it’s to let those Fusion fanatics know that my old home still has some _bite_ in it yet.”

He demonstrated this by making a loud chomping noise in front of them all, drawing back his lips in a snarl to show every bit of the pointed teeth within. Kaede was so wide-eyed at the intimidating display that she didn’t even laugh at the play on words.

Kiri, however, wasn’t even paying attention to that. “Your … old home?”

The boy nodded. “Sakuragi told me his Duel School turned it into an Action Field— _Future Metropolis Heartland_.”

It was as though all the air around them had suddenly vanished. The last word had felt like a gut punch to everyone present, save for Yū—even Roşu looked shocked at hearing the familiar name.

Kiri hadn’t lasted very long in the Maiami Championship: her Duel in the first round had been against a ninja-like Duelist who called himself Hikage. He’d been nothing but a scarlet blur en route to a one-turn kill that knocked her out of the competition. But she’d stayed for the remainder of the tournament—including the Duel where she’d seen that Action Field played for the first and last time in the event. The destructive battle had left her in such bad shock that she’d had to sit out her shows at the aquarium for the next week. And even then, compared to some people—she chanced a look at Kiko, who’d told Kiri more about her buddy on the way over—she had been fortunate.

“Heartland … ” Kiko murmured in a daze. “You’re saying that’s a real place—a real city?!”

“It _was_ a real place.” The smile was gone from the boy’s mouth. “The same people that attacked your city during that Championship of yours … they also destroyed mine. Whatever carnage you saw during the Duel in that _Heartland_ Field was nothing compared to what they did to the real thing. There’s nothing left of it now but ruins and shadows … and the few of us who banded together to fight against the Dueling soldiers of Academia.”

Jong was biting her lip. Kaede and Yūrei were equally bug-eyed and open-mouthed.

All eyes were now on the boy. “My name is Kurokōri,” he introduced himself. “I’m an Xyz Duelist, like all of you—and that’s why I asked Yū to hold this meeting. When Academia invaded Heartland, I joined their resistance to fight back, and take back our homeland for ourselves. Now I’ve come to _your_ homeland, to see if the seven of you have what it takes … to join them, too.”


	6. VI

VI

It took a few moments for what Kurōkori had said to sink in. For some, those moments felt longer than others; Yū, having listened to the Xyz Duelist’s sordid tale of loss and revenge already, did not feel the slow passage of time that came with the dawning comprehension of something so outlandish, that the notion of any part of that tale being true felt like a rejection of the world they’d long since accepted as real.

It was Kiri who finally broke the silence. “Join … your Resistance?”

“That’s right,” said Kurokōri. He proceeded to tell them the same story he’d told Yū last night, compressing his explanation of the four different Dimensions, the Academia that ruled the Fusion Dimension with an iron fist, and the Heartland City in the Xyz Dimension that had felt the decisive crush of that iron fist, down into a matter of minutes. All six kids, Yū noted, had approximately the same look of shock on their own face as the LDS Duelist had had the night before, when hearing this story himself.

“Some of you and your abilities I already know about. Once or twice I’ve even had the pleasure of watching them.” Kurokōri’s eyes swept over Kaede and Yūrei, who were seen to trade glances—perhaps wondering if they might just be those people he’d watched. “As for the rest of you … I can see a look in your eyes that I’ve seen on many people I’ve fought alongside in the past. Maybe you haven’t felt the sting of war firsthand, like I have, but you’ve seen enough of Academia’s attempted invasion of your own dimension that the thought of being invaded at all sickens you to your core—that you’d want to do everything you could to protect your home from being destroyed.”

“It isn’t just that,” said Yūrei. “When I watched that Duel at the Maiami Championship—with Shiun’in Sora and Kurosaki Shun—I saw how destructive their Duel was. Duel Monsters is supposed to be a game—people are supposed to have fun when they play it. Maybe they have fun for different reasons, but … ” He stopped, chewing his tongue as if unsure what to say next. “That wasn’t a fun Duel,” was his eventual choice of words. “I didn’t feel like I was watching a game anymore. And I’m not sure if I can blame Kurosaki or Sora more for that.”

“Hm.” Kurokōri pursed his lips. “Well, I know Kurosaki better than any of you—certainly better than I do Sora. And that does sound a lot like him. He’s one of the best fighters in our Resistance—but any sense of fun he had while Dueling got burned out of him a long time ago. Academia captured his little sister, you see,” he added, to horrified looks. “None of us know why, and none of us have been keen to find out. But he’ll do anything to get her out of their clutches. Even if it involves posing as one of your classmates,” he said, with a sidelong look at Yū.

“What’s this got to do with us?” Kiko asked.

“Like I said, I can see the same look in your eyes as a lot of my Resistance,” said the Xyz Duelist. “Now, for the longest time, we’ve been on the defensive. For some time, the order for the day has been less ‘defend our people and take back what was stolen from them’ than it has ‘defend our people and make sure they have enough to eat and drink every day’. It’s a noble goal, don’t get me wrong; nevertheless, there are times when we wish we had enough manpower to actually take the offensive and mount a retaliatory strike against Academia. I think, with all of you by my side, that the eight of us can do just that.”

Jong gaped. “You’re seriously suggesting we go up against a literal _army_ of Duelists that turn anyone who loses against them into cards they take as trophies?!” she spluttered. “What makes you think we can do any of that?! We’re not soldiers—we’re not even _vigilantes_! Some of us aren’t even old enough to know what that word means!”

Kaede and Yūrei both looked like they were about to indignantly say that yes, they did indeed know what the word meant—but Yū, sensibly, headed off the imminent argument that would have launched by holding up his hands.

“When I first met him,” he explained to Jong, “that question did cross my mind. But right now, Kurokōri just wants to see what we’ve brought to the table. So we’re going to be doing a few Duels today—and that way he can decide for himself if we’re the Duelists he’s looking for. That’s why I asked us all to meet in the park, so we could have a nice, wide-open space to do all that and more.”

“Are we gonna be Dueling him?” Kaede’s stubby hand flew to the clasp of her purse, and the Duel Disk inside.

“Kaede, don’t be ridiculous,” Kiri scoffed. “He’s one of the Resistance, just like _Kurosaki_. I was at the Maiami Championship myself—I’ve seen what that guy can do. Those _Raid Raptors_ of his could take down a whole battalion of Academia’s soldiers if they had the chance. Who’s to say he couldn’t do the same thing with us?”

To her surprise, Kurokōri chuckled at this. “You’re giving me a little too much credit, comparing me to Kurosaki. You’re right, though. I’d wager you could get out your Duel Disks right now, challenge me to a Battle Royale Duel, and the only thing you’d learn is a firsthand lesson in why fools don’t rush in. But that’s not the point. I didn’t cross the dimensions to wipe the floor with any Duelist who looked at me the wrong way.”

Jong was eyeing Yū in a strange way, now. “Are we Dueling _him_ , then?” she asked, pointing to the LDS Duelist a little warily. “Because this guy was the top-ranked Junior Youth at _last_ year’s Maiami Championship.”

“That would explain why he beat me in a Duel last night,” Kurokōri admitted, smirking slightly at the collective double take Jong had led the children in doing at his reply. “I’ve learned what I need to from Yū here—he’s tested himself against me, and I like what I saw from him. That’s why I asked him to help me in putting this together. So since most of this is his idea, I’ll let him explain what we’re going to do here.”

He nodded to Yū, and the LDS student began to speak. He halted in his speech here and there, nervous as he was at the prospect of sudden public speaking, but a quick breath ensured that he didn’t completely stutter over his words.

“The first thing I did with Kaede and Yūrei when I first started tutoring them,” he said, “was to have them Duel each other. They’d seen me Duel before at the previous Championship, after all, and so I assumed they’d come up with ways to fight against my Deck before I’d even known their names.”

Jong was eyeing the two youngest Duelists of the group, her eyebrow raised apprehensively. “They’re _kids_.”

“And kids are a lot smarter than they tend to let on,” Yū said coolly. “You should know that well enough yourself, Miss History Buff. Anyway,” he continued before the Korean could look properly abashed at his retort, “I told them to Duel each other instead to start off our first lesson. I decided that whatever strategy they had in mind to beat my Deck could wait until they’d applied it against a Duelist neither of them knew anything about.”

“We all Duel each other.”

Everyone jumped. Vladislav Roşu hadn’t spoken a single word up to this point, and so his grunt was met with as much surprise as it was confusion. He frowned. “That is plan, yes?” he asked from where he sat on the bench, his arms crossed in aloof relaxation—and his eyes fixed unmistakably on Yū.

“Er … yeah, actually,” said the LDS Duelist, recovering quickly from his bewilderment. “Hit it right on the head. We’re going to do a few Duels out here. Kurokōri and I have already had ours, you already know—so the two of us are going to sit back and watch the rest of you Duel each other.”

Kiko was looking left and right at everyone else. Most of the others were doing the same thing, but she alone seemed willing to speak up. “So … we just pick a person to Duel?” she asked hopefully. “Because if we are, I’m Dueling Yūrei.”

There was a splutter. “Wha—are you still mad at me because of what happened to your arm?” the Wight Duelist said indignantly. “I said I was sorry!”

“So did I,” Kiko conceded, “but that’s not the point. Sometimes, saying sorry isn’t enough. But don’t worry,” she smirked. “I’ll consider us even after _my_ Deck kicks you all over the field.”

“We’re just going to leave grudges out of this, _thank you_ ,” Yū said, not a little irritably at this point, “and leave who faces whom to chance.”

He reached into his pocket, and fished out three straws that he’d found at a coffee shop along the way. “Hold, please,” he said to Jong, who frowned at this briefly before holding out her hand to take the straws. “Um—both hands. It’ll be easier for me.”

The Korean promptly did so, grasping the straws at arm’s length. Carefully, Yū took out his own Duel Disk, and switched it on with a flick of the wrist. The purple blade sheared through the straws at a diagonal with ease.

“Thanks,” he said, taking the straws back and inspecting them. Each of the half-dozen half-straws was a different length now—exactly as he had intended.

Kiri nodded at this. “Okay, I see what you’re doing,” she said. “Drawing straws to see who fights who, huh?”

“That’s right,” said Yū. He closed his hands around the straws, and shook them for a few moments until all six of the unshorn ends poked out of a gap between his thumbs. “So, everybody pick one—the two shortest straws get to Duel. We’ll do this again until everyone’s had a chance to fight.”

He held them out, going around until every straw had been taken. “Okay—hold them out so I can see.” They did.

“Well, nuts,” Kiko was heard to say a moment after that. “I was hoping to have a little more time to get ready.” The straw she held in her artificial hand was barely as long as her palm was wide.

Yū had only just noticed this before Kaede suddenly burst into a giggling fit. It didn’t take him much longer to find out why; the Cuisine Duelist’s straw, held aloft in her raised hand, was even shorter than Kiko’s—just barely longer than the thumb and forefinger in which it had been tucked.

Everyone else produced their straws. All of them showed enough of their length that Yū knew there was little point in checking. “There we go, then,” he said. “Our first Duel’s going to be Okashi Kaede versus Maki Kiko.”

Kiko did a double take when she saw the shorter straw in Kaede’s hand. “Huh,” she said. “Maybe this won’t be so bad after all.”

“Course not!” Kaede was still grinning. “We’re best friends—one Duel’s not gonna change that! C’mon!” And without further ado she bounced away from the group and off the footpath, finally stopping at a clearing some fifty feet away. Kiko, smiling and rolling her eyes at her friend’s enthusiasm, followed her more slowly, peeling off her glove and fixing her red Duel Disk onto the recess of her prosthetic arm once again.

“Are you sure this is a good idea, Yū?” Jong asked. “You wanted to leave our opponents to chance because you were hoping to see how we could do in a Duel against someone we didn’t know—how we responded under pressure. But those two girls have been friends for most of their lives—there’s no way they don’t know each other’s Decks inside and out at this point!”

Yū had thought of this. “It’s not just a matter of who they’re going to be Dueling, Miss Jong,” he said with a grin, “but also a matter of _where_.”

He hefted his Duel Disk, and began tapping at the screen. “Access Action Field database,” he dictated. “Randomize selection, configure for standard 1v1 Duel.” Then, under his breath and almost as an afterthought, “Pick a card—any card,” he added with a smile.

“Working.”

No sooner had the device’s computer delivered a response than images of green-bordered cards began to cycle over its screen, at a rate of a dozen every second. This continued for a few long moments until Yū’s eyes grew blurry from trying to focus on each individual card the Duel Disk displayed—before finally, as abruptly as it had started, a single card out of hundreds now froze on the screen.

“Action Field: _Toy Town_ selected,” announced the computer. “Solid Vision generators online. All non-combatants in the immediate vicinity have been alerted to the Duel in progress.” This was a safety system, Yū knew, put in place so that no one unwittingly wandered into an Action Duel—but more often than not enticed even more people to flock over in groups to watch the unfolding spectacle. _Like moths to a lamp_.

And sure enough, he saw a number of kids, along with a few of their parents, sprinting over to them in the distance as a ball of that metaphorical lamplight bloomed between Kaede and Kiko. The spectators wouldn’t get too close to the Duel site, he was aware—but neither would they shy away from finding a good vantage point, especially if they’d brought any children. That was what currently worried him—did they want an audience in the first place?

“This isn’t going to mess up your plan, is it?” he asked Kurokōri. “I don’t know how private you wanted this to be.”

But the Xyz Duelist shook his head. “It’ll be all right. It’s enough for them to know there’s a Duel going on,” he said. “They don’t need to know why.”

“All right … if you—!” But the rest of Yū’s reply was lost in the sound of the Solid Vision sphere flaring out with a _WHOOM_ noise in every direction. For one eternal second, his world flared with the whitest white his eyes had ever felt, and he instinctively squished his eyes shut in the blinding light.

When the spots finally faded, and Yū judged it safe to open his eyes again, he did so—and felt his jaw drop.

It was a testament to the human imagination that he, Sakuragi Yū, who had participated in more than a hundred different Action Duels in his time playing _Duel Monsters_ —and inside more than a hundred different Action Fields as well—could still feel this amazed and bewildered each time he saw a new Field take shape before his eyes. He appreciated the technology like that—he could marvel at the intricate detail that Solid Vision gave to even the simplest of environments, and likewise feel like he was right at home regardless of how detached from reality each Field’s surroundings could be.

The surroundings of _Toy Town_ , he now saw, swerved so far towards the latter that Yū felt like he’d caught a case of whiplash: the park of Maiami City had been transformed into what he could only call the playroom of some titanic five-year-old child. Race cars and planes littered the scene, blown up to life-size replicas. Playing cards of all four suits, each the length and width of his bedroom floor, had been stacked into massive triangular structures that looked hundreds, if not _thousands_ of feet high, even at a glance. Stuffed animals the size of small houses, of every species he could imagine and then some, dominated the surroundings with their vast bulk like so many hills. Dolls of many shapes and sizes, the smallest of them still several times taller than any human being, stood here and there as still as any statue—insofar as a statue could wear fashion statements that made Kaede’s most elaborate of dresses look like casual attire.

And yet, Yū knew, this only scratched the surface as to what this Field could offer in the way of description. The longer he looked at it, the more there was for him to see—such was the detail that the artistic minds of _Duel Monsters_ , unbound by such silly things as the laws of physics, could add to their three-dimensional counterparts.

Kaede and Kiko, for their part, both goggled at their imminent battleground with the wide eyes of girls who’d just seen their Christmas come early. He was quick to recall that he’d overheard Kiko talking about growing up around toys, so perhaps that was why her reaction looked slightly— _only_ slightly—more muted than that of Kaede. But the Cuisine Duelist’s baby-blue eyes looked ready to pop out of her skull, and her chin came within inches of bouncing off the soft ground—which Yū had just now noticed looked like those top-down playroom rugs with city streets painted onto the fabric, only blown up to life-size like the rest of this whimsical Field, and making him feel even more as though they’d all been shrunk to a mere inch in height, if that.

Only the other boys of the group—Yūrei, Roşu, and Kurokōri—seemed to have any real objection to their new surroundings. The youngest of them was walking gingerly wherever he went, silently grimacing as though he’d stepped in some unpleasant business on the sidewalk. Roşu stayed where he was, arms crossed as tightly as could be, his eyes the only moving part of him; they flicked left and right, eyeing the dolls as if nervous they’d suddenly come to life. Both of them, however, kept their mouths shut about it all.

Kurokōri, however, did not. “So—‘ _Toy Town_ ’,” he repeated skeptically, a rough eyebrow raised. “I dunno … I was hoping for something a little more, um … ” He faltered here, chewing his tongue for a long moment. “Mature? Is that the word I should use? Whatever it is, this … _isn’t_ the kind of Field I’d see us fighting Academia on.”

Yū smiled jauntily at the Xyz Duelist. “Most of us are still kids here, Kurokōri,” he chided him, “even if we don’t like admitting it.” He punctuated this with an askew glance at Yūrei and Roşu. “Besides, I’ve been Kaede’s tutor for a long while. I know her Deck almost as well as she does by now—and I know she can use it to make some _amazing_ plays.”

* * *

“Whoa … ” By now, Kaede was beginning to drool a little from her mouth, so slack was her jaw. Thankfully, she seemed to be aware of this right before it would have left an embarrassing spot on her dress, and she closed it the next moment with a click of grinning teeth.

The next moment, she’d whirled on her soon-to-be opponent. “C’mon, Kiko!” she squeaked. “I wanna try some of this stuff out first!”

What happened in the moments after that, Yū wasn’t sure. All his eyes registered was that Kaede suddenly moved like a dervish on laughing gas; she pounced on Kiko so quickly and energetically that she’d become a veritable blur of giggling ribbons and petticoats. The Cuisine Duelist took her best friend by her natural left wrist—somehow relieving them both of their shoes in the process—and sped for the nearest stuffed animal in her sight, Kiko in tow.

“Kaede, what—?” But the left-hander’s protest ended in an undignified “yeep!” Kaede had launched herself onto the oversized stuffed dog, still raucously giggling—and in one of those feats of strength only kids seem to be capable of, she scrambled up the surface while still hauling her protesting friend.

“Wait just a— _oof_ —hold on, Kaede, just— _burf_ —let me go-o-o-o-o!”

And Kaede did—but by then, she’d already swung Kiko onto the soft belly of the plush pooch and started leaping around in circles around her struggling friend, laughing endlessly and breathlessly as though she’d just discovered the fun zone at a local fair.

* * *

Yū didn’t turn around. He didn’t even move a muscle. But he could feel the gaze of Kurokōri slowly turning to bear on him. He didn’t need the imagination of the artist who designed this Action Field to guess what the boy’s expression looked like. The LDS Duelist could already hear in his mind the many, many questions he was likely to pose to him—each one asking why precisely this impudent little girl was the _amazing Duelist_ he’d just spent ten seconds of his life hyping up to one of the roughest- and toughest-looking people he’d ever met.

In his peripheral vision, he could see Yūrei with his head in his hands. Kiri was gawking, apparently torn between embarrassment and an urge to join the girls. Jong was whispering something into Roşu’s ear. From the faint sneer that lined the Romanian’s lips, and the way his dark eyes had sliced over in Yū’s direction, it seemed that neither of the LDS students had good things to think about him or his pupil from what they’d seen so far.

So he smiled ruefully, rubbed his reddening neck, and spoke with the hope that each syllable saved face with them.

“ … When she puts her mind to it.”

Kurokōri didn’t say a word. Yū, feeling more embarrassed every second, found a part of him wishing he would.

* * *

By now, Kiko had managed to pull herself to a standing position. This was no small feat for a girl with an artificial hand—especially since Kaede, still prancing in circles around her on the pillow-like stomach of the puppy beneath them, seemed dead-set on working off the sugar high her grandmother’s snacks had no doubt given her, and was still making her wobble where she stood with the sheer energy she exuded.

“This—place—is—so—much—fun—it’s—the—best—Action—Field—ever!” Kaede’s braided hair was already dangerously close to falling apart. With every word she spoke, the Cuisine Duelist jumped as high as her billowing dress would allow, the toes of her pastel-pink socks coming level with Kiko’s eyebrows every time.

Kiko was only faintly aware of the twitch in those eyebrows before she suddenly lost her temper. “Would you just listen to me and _stop_ — _please_?!” she yelled.

As if the word “stop” had been some prearranged signal, Kaede’s legs suddenly folded. At the word “please”, she’d hit the soft plush with a _plop_ , her immense dress having ballooned out around her. The little girl now sat up so straightly and attentively that she might have just come from manners classes.

“ _Thank_ you.” But Kiko did not let her exasperation abate for long. “Maybe you haven’t noticed, Kaede, but _this_ ”—she spread her arms wide, gesturing to the immense world of supersized toys around them—“is supposed to be an _Action Field_! You know—for _Duels_?! What the _heck_ was this all about?!”

“C’mon,” Kaede wheedled. “Just because we’re Dueling doesn’t mean we have to Duel right now, Kiko! Besides, the doggy looked so big and squishy!” Her eyes became wide and doleful. “Don’t tell me you didn’t see this plushie and want to give it the biggest hug ever!”

Kiko was regarding her friend with a very dazed expression indeed—like Kaede had taken a cue from a kid’s show and swung a comically huge mallet into her face. She pinched her brow, and sighed.

“Kaede,” she said slowly and patiently, “you’re awesome to be around. I’ve known that from the first day I saw you walk in my shop. I’m not saying I don’t agree with you—on any other day, I might have even joined you,” she conceded with a snort. “But this is _not_ the time for that! We are trying to make a _good impression_ here!”

She swung an arm—her artificial right hand, she belatedly noticed—at Yū and Kurokōri, far off in the distance. “Think about what Yū’s done to help you be a better Duelist! More than that, think about what his friend told us he’s been through in his life—all those … those _bad people_ he had to fight just to make sure he got here in one piece! Is Kurokōri _really_ going to think you deserve to Duel by his side if you’d rather spend your day playing in—in a _bouncy castle_ instead of helping him _fight Academia_?!”

It was plain to see that Kaede had not expected to hear these words at all—and less so from her friend; a single tear was swimming in each eye.

“Sorry,” she said, managing to wipe those tears away with a stubby finger. “I thought if he saw me having fun, he’d cheer up a little. Isn’t that what Duels are supposed to do—to make people happy and have fun?”

Kiko sighed again. “They’re _supposed_ to, all right,” she said. “But some hurts don’t go away that easy, Kaede. You can’t just slap a shiny new hand on somebody’s arm and expect them to get to normal like _that_.” Her metallic fingers made a clicking noise on the last word—the closest they could come to snapping; a suddenly melancholy Kaede was far too late in averting her eyes at the sight. “It takes time to adjust to the new experience. Sometimes, it’s not as much time as we would like—but we have to, all the same.”

She clenched her false hand into a fist; the bright green blade of her Duel Disk now lanced out along her right arm. “You’ve had your time to adjust, Kaede,” said Kiko. “You’ve had your fill of _fun_ for right now. From here on out, you have to show me you _want_ this. You have to be more serious than you’ve ever been in your life.”

Her left hand tensed, millimeters away from the top of her Deck inside her Disk. “Because that’s exactly what I’m going to do against you.”

* * *

It was this, perhaps, that told Kaede just what was about to happen. They’d Dueled plenty of times before—but always in fun, when nothing but personal pride was on the line. So Kaede had approached this Duel as she would have any other with her best friend. Yet this, Kiko knew, would be the first time in their friendship that they had ever fought for something _bigger_ than either of their young lives.

It pained her greatly to have to speak so harshly to the little girl, but Kiko was well aware that she was the wiser of the two—and she suspected some part of Kaede agreed with her, too. The Cuisine Duelist loved to play with toys, as any little girl did—but Kiko had _grown up_ around them. She didn’t just play with them, she built and _re_ built them; she knew how they worked and went together, inside and out. As far as she was concerned, that made her the more grounded in reality of the two—and unless Kaede wised up and got serious, that meant Kiko had the edge.

Kaede swallowed, sniffed wetly, then stood up. Wordlessly, she switched on her own Duel Disk, as pale pink as her socks, and listened to the sizzle of the butter-yellow blade that had sliced along her arm. The Cuisine Duelist was eyeing Kiko with a look that spoke more than any words ever could. Perhaps no words could have sufficed.

But as quickly as it came, that look had been blinked away—and then, as if their minds were linked, both girls acted.

They leapt backward off the stuffed dog in tandem, and in opposite directions, soaring into the air far higher than any “bouncy castle” could have sent them. “Let’s go!” they cried in unison. “ _DUEL!_ ”

* * *

While Kiko and Kaede had been talking, Yū had accessed his Duel Disk’s observer mode, allowing him to watch the Duel unfold on the screen, regardless of where on the Action Field both girls might be Dueling. That screen now showed a basic wireframe of every card zone, complete with hand sizes, Life Point counters, and the amount of cards they had left in their Deck and Extra Deck.

As Yū watched the Duel unfold, and Kurokōri watched from alongside him, a single stray thought entered his mind.

_Make me proud, Kaede._

* * *

The dresses that Kiko and Kaede both wore helped to slow their fall through the air even before the Solid Vision that now permeated it arrested their momentum further still. But Kiko, being older than her friend, was also heavier and taller—and finally, her dress was less of a gown and more of a blouse, allowing her to do a simple somersault in midair. Though Action Fields had the potential to defy such things as air resistance and gravity, this Field was only complex enough to defy description, instead of the laws of physics. This ensured Kiko was first to hit the ground, her five cards already drawn, and zoom across the Field at a full sprint right from the get-go.

“I’m going first!” she declared, passing through a tunnel of wooden building blocks large enough to double up as apartment space. “And I’ll start by playing the Continuous Spell: _Wind-Up Manufacture_ —and Summoning _Wind-Up Magician_ in Attack Position!”

Kaede had wasted no time in going after her friend. But her attention span was diverted the moment she’d entered the tunnel in hot pursuit: the walls and ceiling of the block tunnel were being stripped away bit by bit, replaced by layers upon layers of gears and cranes. From a recess within this machinery dropped a purple-and-white figure, whirring with hidden clockwork: a plastic toy made to look like a wizard, whose pointed hat made it about a head taller than Kiko (Level 4: _ATK 600_ /DEF 1800). A silver staff, topped with gears and a moon, was held high in its grasping claws, and a golden key sprouted from its back like a set of gleaming wings.

“Now I’ll activate my _Wind-Up Shark’s_ effect!” Kiko cried, placing another card on her blade. “When a _Wind-Up_ monster is Summoned to my field, I can Special Summon it from my hand!” Another recess, churning with machinery, opened up beneath her as she exited the tunnel, disgorging a streamlined, blue-and-silver construct that nearly sent the little girl skidding to a halt—both from how closely the fish-like toy had appeared directly in front of her, and from how it had whirled upon the Cuisine Duelist and displayed the oversized fangs in its whirring mouth (Level 4: _ATK 1500_ /DEF 1300).

“ _Wind-Up Shark’s_ second effect!” As Kiko looked on, the golden key stuck within _Shark’s_ dorsal fin began to rotate with a rapid clicking noise. “Once per turn, I can increase or decrease its Level by 1 until the End Phase—so I’ll make my little fishy a Level 3! And because I activated a _Wind-Up_ monster’s effect,” she added, smirking, “that triggers my _Manufacture’s_ effect, and lets me add a Level 4 or lower _Wind-Up_ monster from my Deck to my hand!”

She balled her false hand into a fist; moments later, a single card shot out an inch from her Deck, and was swiped up with little preamble. “And then, since another _Wind-Up_ monster’s effect was activated, that activates my own _Wind-Up Magician’s_ effect! Once—and only once—while it’s on the field, I can Special Summon a Level 4 or lower _Wind-Up_ monster from my Deck in Defense Position! I Special Summon _Wind-Up Hunter_!”

As she left the block tunnel, _Magician’s_ own golden key began to turn in its socket, and it raised its staff high, twirling it until it was naught but a blur. Sparks raced across the hissing gears that topped it, which themselves hissed into a portal glinting with light. Then—right as something leaped from that portal—the key was blasted out of _Magician’s_ back like a bullet from a gun, and it slumped slightly where it stood, apparently unable to move.

But moments later, whatever the toy wizard had conjured had landed on the supersized carpet-ground with a soft _thump_. It reared up to its full, man-sized height on four jointed, olive-green hooves, brandishing a crossbow directly at Kaede with one hand, and sweeping aside a tattered cape with the other (Level 3: _ATK 1600_ /DEF 500).

Kiko was pleased to see that the Cuisine Duelist was paling at the sight of the toy centaur she’d just Summoned: it meant she was beginning to grasp how serious this Duel was about to get. She said as much to Kaede—“and that’s exactly,” she crowed, “why I’m going to use my _Hunter_ and my _Shark_ to construct the Overlay Network!”

She slammed her real hand on the carpet beneath her feet. As if some immeasurable magic resided at her fingertips, a galaxy of color bloomed between the two girls, sucking in her two toys and turning them into blobs of purple and blue energy:

**“Vibrant servant of the golden key, sail forth into battle!”**

**“Xyz Summon!”** chanted Kiko. **“Activate! Rank 3! _Wind-Up Carrier Zenmaity_!”**

The enormous city that the carpet depicted must have shown a seaport of some kind nearby, because an enormous _SPLASH_ had boomed out from directly behind Kiko. Then, something had hurtled from the air like a fired torpedo, coming to a halt ahead and to her right: a colossal, multicolored toy that would have taken up half the space in her bedroom. Twin red keels, linked at the prow by a streamlined blue-and-white torso, hovered inches above the ground, each one supporting a hangar at the rear that opened into an inclined runway. No less than five keys clicked and turned in its body, and golden gears whirred all over the vessel in a mechanized imitation of a call to general quarters (Rank 3: _ATK 1500_ /DEF 1500, ORU 2).

Kaede had taken one look at the monster and—despite its less-then-intimidating appearance—immediately backed away. Kiko had noticed. “You know what’s coming next, then,” she said to the Cuisine Duelist. “Playtime is over—now, I get to show everyone here why I’m the cream of the crop over at Lily’s!”

 _At least for now_ , she added in her head, thinking of Karen. “ _Wind-Up Zenmaity’s_ effect!” Kiko yelled. “Once per turn, by detaching an Overlay Unit”—something small and purple streaked out from the vessel’s left hangar and down the tarmac, taking flight barely a split second after it had appeared—“I can Special Summon a _Wind-Up_ monster from my hand or my Deck! I Special Summon _Wind-Up Rat_ from my Deck in Attack Position!”

The violet missile hit the ground, changing color and solidifying into a blue-white plastic mouse barely level with Kiko’s knee (Level 3: _ATK 600_ /DEF 600), even though it balanced upright on the wheels that served as its hind legs. “And because I Summoned my _Rat_ in Attack Position,” Kiko went on, “I can activate its effect: once, and only once, while it’s on the field, I can switch it to Defense Position, then target another _Wind-Up_ in my Graveyard and revive it in Defense Position as well!” She held her hand high. “And I’m going to revive the same monster I detached from my _Zenmaity_ just now— _Wind-Up Hunter_!”

 _Rat_ scurried in a circle, the key on its back revolving inside its socket like a golden ballerina. Then—just as with _Magician_ —some hidden force spat it into the air at almost the same time as the familiar form of Kiko’s plastic centaur emerged from thin air, landing soundlessly on the carpeted road (Level 3: _ATK 1600_ /DEF 500).

“Now for my _Hunter’s_ effect!” A sinister grin was spreading over Kiko’s face. “Once and only once, while it’s on the field, I can Release another _Wind-Up_ monster, and send a random card from my opponent’s hand to the Graveyard! I’ll Release my _Carrier Zenmaity_!”

 _Hunter_ nocked a bolt on its golden crossbow, pointing it right at Kaede. There was a click, and a flicker of golden light—and moments later, the Cuisine Duelist leapt back, shaking the hand that clutched her cards as if a wasp had just stung her on the finger. A single card fluttered silently to the ground; this Kaede slid into her Duel Disk with an expression of utmost despondency.

Kiko felt the pain in her heart for only a moment—she hated having to do this to her friend—but today, for the first time outside of an actual tournament, she was in her groove, and fighting for something to prove. Because: “You might’ve noticed I have two more Level 3 monsters on my field now. And you know what that means!” she winked at Kaede. “I’m going to use my _Hunter_ and my _Rat_ to construct the Overlay Network again!”

As the two monsters in question disintegrated into formless masses of glittering purple and orange, another great _SPLASH_ was heard from the harbor behind her. She could practically hear the prows of the twin ship emerging from the surface of the carpet, even before the whirling galaxy of stars had faded from view in front of her:

 **“Xyz Summon!”** she screamed. **“Activate! Rank 3! _Wind-Up Carrier Zenmaity_!”**

* * *

Sakuragi Yū was watching the Duel off to the side, a hand to his mouth. The moment he’d heard Kiko was Xyz Summoning a second _Zenmaity_ , he had the notion that Kaede was about to suffer a most humiliating loss indeed.

As the toy ship alighted on Kiko’s left (Rank 3: _ATK 1500_ /DEF 1500, ORU 2), events began to replay in his head. The first _Zenmaity_ had been Summoned with a _Wind-Up Hunter_ —which was then promptly revived by a _Wind-Up Rat_ that she’d plucked from her Deck. Then, Kiko had used _Hunter’s_ effect to blast a card right out of Kaede’s hand before she’d even had the chance to play it. _And now she’s Summoned a second one …_

Yū had been paying close attention to when Kiko’s monsters triggered their effects. Typically, there were limits to how often Duel Monsters could do this; mostly they could only do so once per turn. But the effects were often structured such that only a single copy of those monsters could activate that effect during any given turn, if more than one was on the field; this prevented such effects being used with reckless abandon.

The Main Deck monsters he’d been seeing from Kiko had the drawback of only being able to trigger once while they were face-up on the field. And that was the kicker— _while they were face-up on the field_. If they left the field, only to be Special Summoned later on, it gave them another chance to use those effects—and because there was no part of their effects that restricted Kiko from applying them once per turn, she could employ such a strategy as many times as her immediate resources would allow. Alongside her _Zenmaity_ , whose effect had been structured such that it could trigger once for every copy on the field, this allowed her to greatly extend the longevity of her strategies.

And _Hunter’s_ already devastating effect meant that … He watched as Kiko proceeded to detach _Hunter_ from her second _Zenmaity_ , bring out a second _Rat_ (Level 3: _ATK 600_ /DEF 600), switch it to Defense Position, bring back _Hunter_ (Level 3: _ATK 1600_ /DEF 500), then Release that _Zenmaity_ so that the centaur could fire another bolt at Kaede’s hand. It did so, and Kaede slipped another card into her Graveyard with an increasingly sullen expression.

And then Kiko threw out her hand, and _repeated the process again_.

She didn’t even bother chanting this time; her third and final _Zenmaity_ (Rank 3: _ATK 1500_ /DEF 1500; ORU 2) had emerged almost before _Hunter_ and _Rat_ had disappeared into the miniature galaxy that had formed at her feet. Kiko detached an Overlay Unit almost as quickly; no doubt her _Hunter_ , Yū thought—a notion that was immediately vindicated when yet another _Rat_ whirred onto the field (Level 3: _ATK 600_ /DEF 600), and scurried round and round until the familiar form of the centaur (Level 3: _ATK 1600_ /DEF 500) had emerged in front of _Zenmaity_.

One golden bolt later, and Kaede danced in place as though she’d just been stung on her hand again, dropping a third card from her hand. Yū was resisting the urge to cringe by now; the strategy he had just seen was one of the most disgusting he’d ever seen in his career. That it had come from a girl barely older than one of his own pupils felt all the more insulting, regardless of whether the two opponents were good friends.

 _No wonder Kaede thinks she’s good_ , Yū mused. Kiko had taken out over half of Kaede’s opening hand _before she’d even had a chance to play a single card_. And a single button had allowed him to see on his Duel Disk exactly which cards _Hunter_ had forced Kaede to send. What he saw was disheartening: _Madolche Puddincess_ , _Madolche Château_ , and _Madolche Promenade_ all sat uselessly in her Graveyard; they might as well be light-years out of her reach.

 _An almost perfect opening hand_ , he thought. _Gone before she could even use it_.

He bit his lip. This was not good at all.


	7. VII

VII

Kiko was dizzy with adrenaline. It was a shame she didn’t have any more _Zenmaitys_ or _Rats_ to bring out, she thought with a sigh. _I’ve always wanted to see how long I could keep that combo going_. Three cards sent from the hand to the Graveyard was a personal best—and she still wasn’t done with her turn.

“I still have two monsters with the same Level on my field,” she grinned, gesturing at _Hunter_ and _Rat_ , “and even though I can’t Summon any more of those monsters, I’ll use them to construct the Overlay Network once more—and bring out something even tougher! GO!”

For the fourth time today—Kiko filed away the notion that she had never Xyz Summoned this many times in a Duel before, let alone a single turn—her two monsters disappeared into a whirling galaxy, one that bloomed slightly bigger than any of the three that had brought forth her favorite monster:

**“Mighty servant of the golden key, charge forward into battle!”**

**“Xyz Summon!”** Kiko yelled. **“Activate! Rank 3! _Wind-Up Naval Mine Zenmaine_!”**

A seven-foot-tall scarlet blur rocketed out from before her, high into the air. Then, suddenly, two pincer-tipped shields burst from the mass of energy, propelled by a mixture of wrist-mounted jets and accordion arms so slender and fragile that it was a wonder how they supported the heavy claws at all. They whirled like a helicopter, bringing the newly born monster down gently until it hovered several feet over the field: a pyramid-shaped, brightly-colored torso flanked by the wings of a toy jet, with very little neck in between (Rank 3: ATK 1500/ _DEF 2100_ ; ORU 2).

That would do for a start, Kiko thought. “Two cards face-down,” she declared, placing a pair of cards on her Duel Disk. “Turn end!”

* * *

“That was risky.”

Yū turned to one side. Kurokōri had sat down next to him, frowning. “On the one hand,” he was saying, “whittling down Kaede’s hand gives Kiko a strong edge heading out of her turn. Unless your student draws a good card, she’s about had it already.”

It was Yū’s turn to frown. “But?”

The Xyz Duelist exhaled through his sharpened teeth. “A lot of cards have effects that activate while they’re in the Graveyard,” he replied. “Either they trigger the moment they’re sent there, or they can be banished to activate them manually. How do we know none of Kaede’s cards had effects like that?”

Yū decided not to mention the cards he’d seen in the Cuisine Duelist’s Graveyard. “You’ve been observing her, remember,” he told Kurokōri. “You know what her Deck is like. Her _Madolches_ go out of their way to avoid the Graveyard—the less of them are in there, the better. She’ll empty it out before long.”

Kurokōri thought about this. “And if Kiko stops her from doing that?”

Kaede had already begun her turn by the time Yū realized he had no ready answer.

* * *

She drew her card slowly, lackadaisically. All the tension that had been building up under the Cuisine Duelist’s pudgy arms had deflated, flopping about like a taffy treat that had been stretched too thin.

Kaede knew better than anyone the strengths of her own Deck—and its weaknesses. All of her _Madolche_ monsters had the innate ability to shuffle themselves back inside if they were ever destroyed by an enemy card—either from battle or some special effect of their own. But Kiko’s strategy of repeatedly recycling her _Hunter’s_ effect had not destroyed her cards at all—only sent them to the Graveyard. Ten years old though she was, Kaede was still an experienced enough Duelist to know there was the difference … and that Kiko, by exploiting that difference, had just dealt her a devastating setback.

“What’s wrong?”

Kiko’s question broke through, and it was only then that Kaede was aware of the wetness stinging at her eyes. The two cards left in her hand were blurry through her vision; she was staring at them without really seeing them.

“Why’d you have to do that, Kiko?” Her voice was halting, the words shaky. “I had a really g-good hand, and now it’s a-all gone! How am I supposed t-to impress Kurokōri now, like Yū- _sensei_ w-wants me to?”

Kiko bit her lip. “This isn’t about who starts the Duel with the better hand, Kaede,” she said heavily. “It isn’t even about who can make the stronger field. It’s about what you can do under pressure. And if you’re about to go to pieces on me because I just took out over half of your starting hand … then what’s going to happen when Academia ends up doing worse to you, huh? How will Kurokōri know you’re the sort of fighter he’s looking for then?”

Kaede said nothing. Kiko put a hand on her hip. “I warned you that I was going to be more serious today than in any Duel I’ve ever faced you before,” she chided. “I saw the look on your face when you saw me Summon my _Hunter_ —you knew what I was going to do to you. And yet you didn’t start looking for Action Cards to stop me. Maybe if you had, my _Hunter_ might have discarded those instead of your precious _Madolches_ , and saved your hand for when it really mattered. So answer my question—what’s wrong?”

The Cuisine Duelist bowed her head. “I … I dunno,” she mumbled. There was no point in denying it—they knew each other too well for that. “I just … wanted today to be a fun day with you … ”

“It can still be one,” soothed Kiko—and as if to prove her point, she clambered onto a nearby stuffed pig, bounced on its tummy, and flipped over Kaede to land atop her _Zenmaine_ with a grin.

“Having to live my life with only one hand taught me a big lesson when I was little,” Kiko told her. “Your life is only what you make it. You can moan about it and wish you were able to do things everyone with two hands can. _Or_ you can actually _try_ to do those things with your one hand”—she flexed her metallic fingers for her friend to see—“and you’ll be that much stronger when you succeed.”

She held out the false hand invitingly. “So, c’mon,” she smiled. “Want to have some fun?”

Kaede needed another deep breath—then a second and third—before she was ready to take another look at her cards again. Her blue eyes zoomed across them all, narrowed in concentration—

—and her pudgy hand clenched into a fist. “I Summon _Madolche Croiwanssant_ in Attack Position!” she cried, and a single card was promptly swiped across her Duel Disk.

At the edge of the field, Yū bit his lip. The last time he’d seen this monster was enough for him to schedule regular visits to his local dentist. He wished he’d brushed his teeth a little longer before leaving.

It was too late to fix that now, though: a giant pancake—cut up like the piece of a puzzle—had already popped out of thin air and plopped onto the field. A tiny toy puppy in a top hat had bounded from within almost before the piece had begun to settle, treading butter and syrup everywhere as it scampered in circles around Kaede, chasing its tail at breakneck speed (Level 3: _ATK 1500_ /DEF 1200).

Yū couldn’t help it—he looked again. Jong and Kiri were both clutching at their hearts, though only the Korean was bothering to hide how cute she thought the sight was. On the other hand, Yūrei was grimacing—understandable; he’d come off a lot worse in the last Duel he’d faced it, Yū knew—and both Roşu and Kurokōri wore looks that suggested they were done with watching the Duel already. He couldn’t help but think that might be a mistake.

“And that’s just an appetizer!” Kaede slid a second card across her screen. “Next, I activate the Continuous Spell: _Madolche Salon_ —and then I’ll activate _Croiwanssant’s_ effect!” yelled Kaede. “Once per turn, by returning another _Madolche_ card from my field to my hand, I can give it 300 ATK and another Level! So I’ll return my _Salon_ —then play it again, and make my cute little puppy even cuter!” One swiped card later, and _Croiwanssant_ was _yip-yip-yipping_ in delight, perhaps having noticed its point gauge rising to 1800.

“Continuous Trap: _Spring Hoisting_!” Kiko bellowed just then, revealing one of her Set cards. “Once per turn, I can target a Machine-Type Xyz Monster I control, and attach a _Wind-Up_ monster from my hand or field to it as another Overlay Unit! I target my _Naval Mine Zenmaine_ , and attach my _Magician_!” Next to her, the monster in question shimmered with red flame, and within seconds was just another sphere of energy that orbited the monster on which Kiko stood.

That just left _Zenmaine_ as the only monster on her field that Kaede could attack—and its DEF, Yū knew, was a lot more than even the most mischievous and determined of puppies could gnaw through.

But Kaede wasn’t done yet—not even close. “ _Madolche Salon’s_ effect lets me Normal Summon a second _Madolche_ monster once every turn,” she went on, “so let’s serve up another tasty dish! I Summon _Madolche Anjelly_ in Attack Position!” And as she swiped the card she’d drawn onto her blade, a second puzzle piece made of red gelatin dropped from the sky and landed right next to _Croiwanssant’s_ piece with a wet, wobbly _flop_ — almost flattening the poor pooch before it could succeed in catching its tail.

Then the monster saw its new partner leaping from the new puzzle piece and onto the field, striking a pose like a gymnast who’d just stuck her dismount. The little girl was almost Kaede’s age and height, though her white dress and brown hair were only slightly less extravagant-looking than those of her Summoner (Level 4: _ATK 1000_ /DEF 1000). At once, _Croiwanssant_ had leapt into _Anjelly’s_ outstretched arms, nuzzling into her shoulder as the little girl scratched behind its ears, cooing playfully.

Kaede paused only to ogle the tooth-rotting display with a high-pitched squeal of glee—and then: “Now for my _Anjelly’s_ effect! Once per turn, I can Release it and Special Summon a _Madolche_ monster from my Deck that can’t be destroyed by battle, but goes right back in when I end my turn! I Special Summon _Madolche Messengelato_!”

 _Croiwanssant_ scurried away just in time: _Anjelly_ bounced on her puzzle piece and whirled away with a giggle and a flash, gelatin and all. But yet another piece had clattered onto the field in its place: a crispy, meter-square waffle that supported a black-clad postman with green hair (Level 4: ATK 1600/DEF 1000).

Even Kiko couldn’t resist laughing at the antics that followed: _Messengelato_ took one look at the happy puppy and started running in circles as if it was _Croiwanssant’s_ favorite chew toy, with the monster in hot pursuit. But Kaede ignored them; Yū could tell that with every card she played, she was beginning to salvage her sudden setback.

“ _Messengelato’s_ effect!” she cried, raising her voice a little over the continuing _yip-yip-yips_ of _Croiwanssant_. “If I Special Summon it while I control a Beast-Type _Madolche_ monster, I can add a _Madolche_ Spell or Trap Card from my Deck to my hand! I add and activate another Continuous Spell— _Madolche Ticket_!”

Seconds later, she’d placed another card on her Duel Disk—and Yū was grinning. So was Kurokōri; he leaned forward next to Yū, suddenly much more invested in this Duel than he was in the cutesy display of holographic interactivity.

“Two Level 4s … ” he murmured to himself.

“Oh, yeah.” The LDS Duelist smirked. “None of this song and dance is for show. Just watch.”

And sure enough, Kaede was rubbing her hands together in anticipation. “It’s time for the _main course!_ I’ll use my Level 4 _Croiwanssant_ and _Messengelato_ to construct the Overlay Network!”

The two monsters, still huddled together, rose into the air as if borne aloft by a great wind. Golden light surged over them both, swirling into the miniature galaxy that had bloomed between the two girls:

**“Sugar-sweet desserts of faraway lands—each one made with her own two hands!**

**“Xyz Summon!”** Kaede chanted. **“Feast your eyes! Rank 4! _Queen Madolche Tiaramisu_!”**

At first glance, the puzzle piece in the sky looked bigger than the rest—enough to cast a small shadow over the field—but Yū realized an instant later that this was because it was only falling more slowly. Even when the slice of pastry drew level with Kaede, it only hovered several feet above the carpeted ground—all the better to protect the stately, silver-haired woman on the throne that it supported (Rank 4: _ATK 2200_ /DEF 2100; ORU 2).

Yū saw Kiko gulp. There was nothing threatening at all about _Queen Tiaramisu_ ’s appearance, but he knew Kaede’s opponent was right to be scared all the same. He’d seen the Cuisine Duelist’s ace monster in action more times than he could count—and being her best friend, she must have seen it more than enough to know what it could do.

“ _Queen Tiaramisu’s_ effect,” Kaede smirked. “Once per turn, by detaching an Overlay Unit, I can target up to 2 _Madolche_ cards in my Graveyard and shuffle them into my Deck! And then,” she added, plucking a pair out of her Graveyard slot and slipping them into her Deck, “I can shuffle the same number of cards on your field into the Deck as well! So I’ll shuffle your _Spring Hoisting_ and your _Zenmaine_!”

Yū had only met a handful of cards that had as nasty an effect as _Tiaramisu_ —even the ones he’d seen Kiko use today were a minor fraction of them. It was customary to protect monsters from being destroyed by battle or by enemy card effects—or even from being targeted by those card effects. But _Tiaramisu_ did neither of those things—in fact, there were really only two ways to protect against it. The first was to negate its activation and force Kaede to waste an Overlay Unit—which, judging from how _Tiaramisu_ was using one hand to nibble at a slice of cake that bobbed near her throne, meant it was too late for that.

The second was to render one of the shuffled cards completely immune to card effects, which very few cards in the game did—but which a fair share of Action Cards _could_. And it was for that reason that Kiko acted.

She raised her false hand, and _Zenmaine_ did the same with a claw, stretching it out fifty feet, a hundred—two hundred—until it grappled at a house of cards in the distance. Pincers snapped, accordion joints squeezed, and Kiko and her monster were propelled away, beginning the sort of high-speed, high-flying display that made Action Duels so entertaining.

Kaede growled, annoyed, as she watched _Zenmaine_ swing through the supersized playing cards like a monkey in the jungle. None of her monsters were either big enough or quick enough to use as mounts—one of her few weaknesses in an Action Duel, Yū knew; and one that needed the sort of inventive attitude a girl her age didn’t often possess.

So it was that Kiko found an Action Card less than ten seconds later, resting somewhere inside that house of cards. “Action Magic: _Invisibility_!” she cried, and _Zenmaine_ was suddenly wiped from view as she dismounted, sliding down the slope of a second card house and flipping onto the back of a stuffed kitten the size of a car. “Any monster I target with this card becomes immune to all other card effects for the rest of this turn!”

Kaede swiped the air with a fist—but she still had a few reasons to smirk, and managing to shuffle Kiko’s _Spring Hoisting_ into her Deck was only one of them. “My Continuous Spells, _Ticket_ and _Salon_ , both have effects that activate if a card effect shuffles a _Madolche_ monster from my field or my Graveyard into my Deck,” she explained. “Once per turn, _Salon_ can Set a _Madolche_ Spell or Trap right from my Deck”—a single card was spat into her waiting hand, then into her Duel Disk—“and my _Ticket_ can add a _Madolche_ monster from my Deck to my hand.”

“But that’s just the start!” Kaede fluttered her chosen card in the air. “If I control a Fairy-Type _Madolche_ monster, like my charming _Tiaramisu_ here,” Kaede said, gesturing to her regal monster, who waved back while hiding a faint blush, “ _Ticket’s_ effect can Special Summon that monster from my Deck in Attack Position instead! So I’m going to Special Summon the first card your combo sent to my Graveyard—my darling _Madolche Puddincess_!”

And yet another piece of whatever supersized puzzle it came from dropped from on high. This one was heavier than the others; _Tiaramisu’s_ throne actually jumped an inch or two when it hit the field with a loud _THUNK_. But the monster that landed on top did so with barely a tap of her white shoes against the gigantic dessert. Not one gust of wind stirred—an act made doubly impressive by the cake-frosted ruffles of _Puddincess’_ heavy white gown, and the equally enormous explosion of blonde hair that bloomed so high above her tiara that she looked like a body double of Kaede herself (Level 5: _ATK 1000_ /DEF 1000).

Even as Yū watched in stunned amazement, however, that point gauge exploded to **_2300_** / **2300**. “ _Puddincess’_ effect gives it a bonus 800 ATK and DEF while there aren’t any monsters in my Graveyard!” Kaede said smugly.

It was Kiko’s turn for her mouth to fall open. “But—what about that Overlay Unit you detached?!” she demanded.

But just as quickly, she closed her mouth—then opened it again—and Yū suspected she already knew the answer.

For the Action Field was cracking beneath their feet—not into jagged shards, but into meter-wide slices, as cleanly and smoothly as if some giant invisible saw was carving it apart: a fresh puzzle waiting to be disassembled, boxed up, and then remade. Pieces by the dozen floated upwards into the sky, replaced by entire towers and walls of pastry, topped with puffs of frosting and drizzles of chocolate—

Yū recognized Kaede’s Field Spell: _Madolche Château_ , even before the Cuisine Duelist announced it for all to hear—and knew at once that she must have shuffled it with _Tiaramisu_ , then used her _Salon_ to Set it to her Field Zone. It looked like the biggest and most ambitious gingerbread house in history—and by far the most enticing; the LDS Duelist never failed to feel his mouth water after even one glimpse at the extra-sugary landscape.

“ _Madolche Château’s_ first effect shuffles every _Madolche_ monster in my Graveyard right back into the Deck,” said Kaede, “and then its second effect gives every _Madolche_ monster on my field another 500 ATK and DEF!” She gestured to her _Tiaramisu_ , whose silvery hair gleamed with inner power as her own gauge rose to **_2700_** / **2600**.

“Battle Phase!” Both of Kaede’s monsters steeled themselves, ready for action. “ _Madolche Puddincess_ —attack _Naval Mine Zenmaine_!” And both little girls were off, monster sprinting right and Summoner left, virtually indistinguishable amidst the rush of the Duel and the byzantine fusion of Action Field with Field Spell.

“Too little, too late, Kaede!” cried Kiko, making a fist with her false hand. “ _Zenmaine’s_ effect—whenever it would be destroyed, I can detach an Overlay Unit instead!” And right as _Puddincess_ bounced up from the rubber ball she’d used as a springboard, her high heels brought together in a drilling kick, one of _Zenmaine’s_ accordion-claws swatted downwards at the last moment, blocking _Puddincess’_ attack and sending her right through one of the Overlay Units that orbited it. The monster tumbled onto the carpeted streets in a jumble of petticoats—but recovered surprisingly quickly, skidding to a halt and unhooking her crown in the same movement.

“It’s a good effect,” Kiko admitted, watching _Puddincess_ launch that tiara at her monster like a boomerang, “but _Zenmaine’s_ effect isn’t once per turn. And it works with both battles _and_ card effects, too,” she added, “which means your _Puddincess’_ second effect won’t destroy it after she battles—like I know you were hoping to try!”

As if to prove her point, _Zenmaine’s_ other arm flicked outward, and suddenly the monster’s tiara was sent spiraling through another of its Overlay Units—which winked out without a sound—and into a wall of wooden building blocks. One curve of the crown embedded itself in the wood, quivering mere inches from Kaede’s own head.

Yū grimaced. Kiko knew Kaede too well—perhaps well enough that she’d even anticipated her best friend would not only bounce back, but turn the tide of the Duel in her favor. So she’d Summoned _Zenmaine_ as a perfect defense against any monster Kaede could try to Summon, or any effect that might otherwise have left her open for an attack.

But Kaede seemed determined to press on. “Your turn, _Queen Tiaramisu_!” she ordered. “Attack!” And the stately monster rose to her feet, scepter in hand. _Tiaramisu_ twirled the ornate rod once—then fired a beam of blinding energy right at _Zenmaine_. It scythed right through its last Overlay Unit, but the monster was too quick—a clattering of accordion joints brought both pincers together in a shield that protected both it and Kiko.

“That’s your last monster to attack,” smirked Kiko. “Which means it’s time for _Zenmaine’s_ second effect! During the End Phase, if I used its first effect at any point this turn, I can target a card on the field and destroy it! And as cool as it is that you Summoned _Tiaramisu_ after everything I put you through … nah.” She poked her tongue out at Kaede. “I can’t leave it out there for you to use again. So make it happen, _Zenmaine_ —destroy _Queen Tiara_ —!”

She fell silent. A strange cracking noise could be heard, and it was apparent to everyone where it was coming from.

 _Zenmaine’s_ tetrahedral body was crumbling, disintegrating into a thousand plastic shards. The Lily’s Duelist was able to leap off just in time before her monster shattered completely, collapsing onto the carpeted roads in a pile of mechanical innards. Then those shimmered away, vanishing into thin air—leaving behind only a flummoxed Kiko.

“Wha—how?!” she yelled. She looked barely able to form words. “My monster still had an Overlay Unit when it fought _Tiaramisu_!” Then she blinked—and rounded on Kaede. “Unless … ”

The Cuisine Duelist giggled from behind her wall of blocks. “Look what I found!” she sang gaily, waving a single card at Kiko. “Action Magic: _Single Destruction_! If my opponent controls a monster—and _only_ that monster—I can target that monster and destroy it! Easy as pie!”

Kiko clutched her hair so tightly that a few strands parted company with her scalp, entwined within her spindly prosthetic fingers. “ _That’s_ what you were doing,” she breathed in realization. “You wanted to get rid of its Overlay Units before you used that Action Card to get rid of _Zenmaine_ itself!” Or had she gone even further than that? the Lily's Duelist wondered. Had Kaede been counting on her using _Spring Hoisting_ to attach her _Magician_ and leave _Zenmaine_ alone, then shuffling her Trap back into her Deck so that her Xyz Monster wouldn't get too strong?

Kaede’s smile was audibly stretching at the seams of her mouth. “I never can fool you, can I? But!” She bounced out from behind her wall, her gown fluttering all over the place. “Since it’s still my turn, I’ve got one last course to serve up—and I’ll start by banishing the third card you discarded from my hand last turn—the Trap Card: _Madolche Promenade_! That lets me attach a _Madolche_ monster from my hand, Deck, or Graveyard to a _Madolche_ Xyz Monster I control as an extra Overlay Unit! I attach my _Puddincess_ to my Queen _Tiaramisu_ —and _then_.”

Kiko didn’t know how it was possible that Kaede was grinning even wider. “Then,” the Cuisine Duelist said again, “I’m going to use my _Tiaramisu_ as a whole Overlay Unit … and _reconstruct_ the Overlay Network to Summon _this!_ ”

* * *

As Kaede’s two monsters locked hands with one another, shimmering with golden energy, Yū could hear mutters and murmurs from everyone else who was spectating the Duel. His two classmates, Jong and Roşu, were conversing silently again—though the latter looked much more invested in this Duel than he had been before; a single eyebrow was arched above his brow, and his eyes were fixed on Kaede’s monsters as they rose into the air. Yūrei was cringing even lower than he was before, no doubt remembering how his first loss to Kaede had ended. Kiri and Kurokōri, however, were both just as slack-jawed as the other—and the Xyz Duelist was rubbing at his eyes as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing:

**“A princess who's so sugary sweet, that just one smile will rot your teeth!”**

**“ _Xyz Change_!”** Kaede crowed. **“Feast your eyes on my greatest recipe ever! Rank _5_! _Madolche Puddincess Choco-a-la-Mode_!”**

With a flare of light, _Tiaramisu_ disappeared from view, shrinking into the galaxy that swirled around her throne—and was almost instantly replaced by Kaede’s Duel Monster double for the second time this Duel. This time, however, saw _Puddincess_ in vastly different clothes; her gleaming silver tiara was bigger, while the gown that bloomed around her body looked like it had been made from some of the darkest chocolate Yū had ever seen or tasted in his life (Rank 5: _ATK 2500 » **3000**_ /DEF 2200 » **2700** ; ORU 3).

“Holy … ” Kurokōri didn’t look like he was ready to take back everything he’d said about Kaede just yet. But Yū could tell the thought was crossing his mind. No doubt he’d considered this an advanced form of Xyz Summoning even back home in Heartland—one that might cement her place among all these Duelists today.

The LDS Duelist did his best to keep from looking smug. But he couldn’t resist an expertly timed “I told you.”

* * *

“Turn end.”

The Cuisine Duelist, on the other hand, wasn’t even trying to hide her smug expression. Kiko knew she had good reason not to; not only was _Choco-a-la-Mode_ far stronger than most monsters she carried in her entire Deck _and_ Extra Deck, but her effects would win Kaede the Duel if her next draw turned out to be a bust.

She bit her lip. Here we go … “My turn!” she screamed, drawing her next card with a flourish that ruffled the carpet under her feet. Kiko turned the card over in her fingers—

—and immediately felt the gears turn in her head. “I activate the Spell Card: _Overwound Spring_!” Kiko shouted, slapping her freshly drawn card onto her Duel Disk. “By targeting a _Wind-Up_ monster in my Graveyard, I can Special Summon it in face-up Defense Position with its effects negated! I choose to revive _Wind-Up Magician_!” With a snap of her fingers, a dark purple portal sizzled in front of her feet, singing the carpet beneath for a few moments before spitting out the same purple-white toy figure she’d used to start the Duel—though minus the golden key in its back (Level 4: ATK 600/ _DEF 1800_ ).

“Then, I’ll Summon _Wind-Up Warrior_ in Attack Position!” the Lily’s Duelist declared, slamming another card onto her blade and watching a yellow-white, lantern-jawed toy shimmer onto her field. This one was a head taller than Magician and at least twice as broad, flexing burly claws at _Choco-a-la-Mode_ as though they could do a lot more than pinch the skin (Level 4: _ATK 1200_ /DEF 1800).

“That’s two Level 4s on my field—and you know what’s coming next, Kaede!” Kiko told her. “I’m going to use my _Warrior_ and my _Magician_ to construct the Overlay Network!” She saw her friend draw back as _Magician_ and _Warrior_ coalesced into scarlet and golden spheres of energy, sucked inside yet another galaxy of stars before her:

**“Elite servant of the golden key, lead the charge to battle!”**

**“Xyz Summon!”** Kiko screeched. **“Activate! Rank 4! _Wind-Up Armor Zenmaister_!”**

Something huge and blocky erupted from the stellar mass: a giant robot at least twenty feet tall—almost as big as most of the stuffed animals that littered the Action Field. Kiko bounced on one of them to propel herself upwards, and alight on her newest monster’s tetrahedral body, buoyed upwards by four jet engines that belched enough heat to rival a furnace (Rank 4: _ATK 1900_ /DEF 1500; ORU 2).

“ _Armor Zenmaister’s_ effect!” She had to shout at the top of her lungs to have any chance of Kaede hearing her. “For each Overlay Unit attached to it, it gains 300 ATK!”

She gestured to her monster’s point gauge, now sitting firmly at _2500_. “But I’m not done yet!” crowed Kiko. “Or did you forget that I still have one more face-down card on my field?”

Judging by the way Kaede’s eyes had bugged, she had indeed forgotten. _Gotcha_. “Trap, activate: _Over Wrench_!” cried Kiko, revealing her _coup de grace_ at last. “By targeting a _Wind-Up_ monster on my field, I can double its current ATK and DEF, and return it to my hand during the End Phase! But I don’t plan on going that far,” she added, smirking as her monster’s gauge skyrocketed to **_5000_** / **3000**. “Because … ”

She broke off; a glint of light had suddenly caught her eye. “Hold that thought,” grinned the Lily’s Duelist—and with a tap of her foot against _Zenmaister’s_ body, the monster was off, rocketing over the field like a jet fighter with arms. Those arms closed over the Action Card an instant later, tossing it up to where Kiko could catch it in her prosthetic arm before the slipstream buffeted it out of reach. She turned it over—

—and grimaced. _Oh, Kaede … you’re going to hate me for this_. But the rueful feeling didn’t last for long. “Okay, where was I?” She snapped her fingers. “Oh, yeah! Battle Phase!” she cried. “ _Armor Zenmaister_ —attack _Choco-a-la-Mode_! **_Sonic Clockwork Clash!_ ”**

She barely had time to brace herself— _Zenmaister_ put on a burst of speed, rocketing through the air in a wide arc over the field and bare meters over Kaede and her monster lookalike. The slipstream slashed through the dress of _Choco-a-la-mode_ , utterly ruining it before the bulk of the shockwave upended her completely and shattered her into a billion motes of photonic dust. Kaede herself fared little better; she was sent head over white heels into the same wall of building blocks she’d used to take shelter in earlier. The entire construction caved in, and Kiko barely heard the squeak of pain and surprise from under the jumble of toys as Kaede’s LP plummeted to 2000.

“And finally, with the Action Magic: _Wonder Chance_ ”—Kiko held on tight, even as her monster slowed down—“I can target a monster I control, and make it attack once again! Go, _Zenmaister!_ Attack her Life Points directly!”

Kaede dug herself out of the pile of blocks too late to dodge what happened next: _Zenmaister_ brought out its hands at arms’ length—then slapped them together with such force that the shockwave created by the impact was actually visible. It went straight through Kaede’s body, sending her backwards and airborne with a squeal. The Cuisine Duelist bounced once—twice—thrice against the carpeted streets, before finally crashing upside down into the belly of a stuffed tiger with enough force that it nearly collapsed on her, too. Fortunately, it was more forgiving than the fall her LP gauge had taken; it shrieked its piercing tone for all to hear, having been depleted to zero.

“Ow-ow-ow … ” she was heard to mutter through strained teeth, “rug burn rug burn rug burn ow-ow- _owie_ … ”

* * *

And just like that, as _Toy Town_ dissolved back to the skyline of Maiami City, Yū felt like he could breathe again.

It was an immense relief to know that his pupil was okay after taking on an assault like that. It was even more so to see Kiko rushing for her, pulling her out of the tiger’s embrace and to her feet. The Cuisine Duelist’s intricately styled hair was a thorough mess by now, and Yū might have to find a few Band-Aids for the worst bits of rug burn that he could see on her arms and legs. Other than that, she was okay—the worst wound she could have received today would have been her pride.

“She got too greedy,” Kurokōri said from alongside him. “If Kaede had left her _Puddincess_ be, then her _Ticket_ and her _Château_ could have recycled it—maybe even brought it back to her field.”

“But then you wouldn’t have known she was capable of that level of Xyz Summoning,” Yū said with a knowing grin. “Isn’t that why you wanted to see us all in action?”

The Xyz Duelist had no immediate answer. “It doesn’t do her any good to show off in a combat situation,” he said, rather lamely. Yū took that as proof that he’d won that argument for the time being.

Kiko and Kaede sprinted up to them then, holding hands and looking distinctly disheveled—Kaede more so by an order of magnitude. “Great show, kids,” the LDS Duelist said to them both. “You especially, Kaede,” he added. “That was one of the best comebacks I’ve seen from a Duelist … well, ever.”

Kaede attempted a smile. “It wasn’t good enough for me to win, though, Yū- _sensei_ ,” she said softly. She was not looking him in the eye.

“You’re selling yourself short, girl,” Kiko chided from beside her. “I’m not stupid—I won that Duel out of dumb luck. That last Action Card was what did it.”

“Who’s selling themselves short now?” But Yū smiled. “Take a rest, girls—you’ve earned it after today.”

“Actually … ” Kiko had an odd look on her face. She was staring at Kaede, then back to the grassy field of the park where they’d been Dueling. “Could you maybe … wait to hold the next Duel?”

She bit her lip. “For, like … a couple hours?”

Yū blinked—and then it hit him. He turned to Kurokōri—but the Xyz Duelist had already sussed out Kiko’s intentions as well. He was staring back at the LDS Duelist with a _please-don’t-waste-my-time_ look on his face.

Taking the hint, Yū folded his arms. “Half an hour,” he said. He saw Kaede perk up, and knew his instincts had been correct. But he wasn’t about to let them forget the lessons they’d learned today so easily.

Unfortunately, Kiko had the look of a hard seller on her face. “Full hour,” she smirked. She _tink-tink-tinked_ her false fingers against the metal of her palm as if trying to sound threatening.

Yū had been threatened with worse. “Forty-five minutes,” he said definitively. “And the two of you had better be super-serious for the rest of the day.”

Kaede’s baby-blue eyes lit up with glee. Kiko had seen. “Deal,” she said—and then she’d dashed off in the opposite direction, calling over her shoulder, “Last one to the bouncy puppy’s a _Monster Egg_!”

“Wha—hey, come back here! No fair!” spluttered Kaede, racing off after her. Yū barely missed her shoes, having been cast off once more without a care in the world, sailing inches over his scalp as he fiddled with his Duel Disk. The two childhood friends made their way towards a freshly reactivated _Toy Town_ , and wasted no time in setting upon its fantastical sights with glee.

Kurokōri buried a hand in his face with a sigh. “And Kiko was doing so well,” he grumbled. “I hope the rest of these kids aren’t nearly as scatterbrained as the ones I saw Dueling just now.”

“Don’t make me remind you again, Kurokōri,” Yū smirked devilishly at him, barely paying attention to Kiko and Kaede prancing across the huge stuffed dog like kindergartners trying to out-jump each other on the backyard trampoline. “They’re younger than you. Of course they’re going to act more childish. Just give them _this_.

“And besides,” he added slyly, “I bet even you had to get the wiggles out of your system, when you were their age.”

Kurokōri did not speak for a long while. He looked away from Yū, towards the whimsical locale of _Toy Town_ and its two resident Duelists—and perhaps even past that.

“That was a long time ago,” he muttered, half to himself. Yū could only hear it because of how close he was to the Xyz Duelist. “Too long. They got burned out of me a long time ago—just like the heart and soul of my home.”

He stayed so quiet after that that Yū knew there was no point in asking if he was all right—or if there was anything he could do to help. Perhaps he was better off focusing on making this day go swimmingly, the LDS Duelist thought as he let Kaede’s and Kiko’s shrieks of joy permeate his ears. There were still four more Duelists left to test—and he knew they brought far more to the table from experience alone than a pair of preteen prodigies.

So he lay back in the grass, relaxed, and closed his eyes in contentment, already feeling more at ease today than he had all morning.

That, he would later learn, turned out to be a mistake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Hey, all; Kim here. This story will be going on hiatus for a bit; literally as this was posted, TWW got word that a close relative of hers passed away. This has been one more blow to her in a year that's been full of them, so out of respect for her and her family, updates will be paused until she's had time to process this loss.
> 
> See you in 2021,
> 
> – K


	8. VIII

VIII

A little less than an hour later, Kaede and Kiko—both of their outfits tousled and rumpled, both sweating and panting as though they’d just run a race—watched _Toy Town_ vanish from view with no small amount of longing. But they were grinning too giddily to feel even slightly disappointed; Kaede’s smile was so particularly cheek-straining that an outsider could be forgiven for forgetting she’d just lost a Duel.

“That was so much fun, Kiko!” the Cuisine Duelist giggled for the tenth time in as many minutes, bouncing over to Yū with a ruffle of petticoats, who patted her on the back in reply. “I hope I get to visit your school one day. Then we can Duel on that Field again, and I’ll make us even when I kick your butt, and then we can play for a whole hour after that next time and—”

“Kaede, the more you talk about it, the more I’m going to be tempted,” said Kiko, smiling back at her, prying her Duel Disk out of the magnetic clasp on her arm and sliding it back into her purse. “Just remember what Yū said—we’ve got to be super-serious for the rest of the day.”

“Right!” And the little girl immediately puffed up her chest and cheeks, setting her jaw into a teeth-grinding snarl that might have been her idea of a stereotypical drill sergeant. Kiko couldn’t help it—she burst out laughing at the ridiculous expression. Yū himself had to turn away from her at the sight; he didn’t trust himself to say a word. The LDS student could already feel his chest muscles aching from trying to restrain his own laughter.

Kurokōri had noticed. “Time and a place, friend,” he admonished Yū gently. “We’ve still got four more people to go. If we can get through them all before sunset, that’d be great.”

With great difficulty, Yū managed to calm himself down. Wiping one last tear of suppressed mirth from his eye, he now produced the straws he’d used to decide the combatants of the first Duel.

“All right—Kaede, Kiko, find a spot on the grass and sit down,” he instructed them. “Somewhere in the shade, if you like—you’ve put yourself through a lot today. Everyone else—it’s the same drill as before. Take a straw, any straw. The two shortest straws are next up to Duel.”

Jong, Roşu, Kiri, and Yūrei each stepped forward, taking a straw from Yū’s hand one at a time.

“Okay—hold out your straws.”

They did so; Yū immediately noticed the two longest straws being held by both boys in the group. “There we have it: the next Duel’s going to be Kiri against Miss Jong. You two go ahead and get set up—let me know when you’re ready to start.”

“Got it!” Both girls strode forward, producing their own Duel Disks as they did so: Kiri’s was the same sky-blue device that Kaede and Kiko had seen her using earlier today at the aquarium, while Jong had already secured a dark gray Disk to her left wrist.

They stopped at the edge of a peaceful-looking duck pond nearby, staring each other down with an intensity that surprised Yū. He only needed one look at Kiri to know that she wasn’t simply ready, but _raring_ to show Kurokōri and all others else present what she and her Deck could do. Jong, by contrast, was more level in her expression—but the LDS Duelist could still feel the quiet confidence that seemed to radiate from the Korean’s entire body.

“Okay, girls,” he said, sitting under the nearest tree he could find; Kurokōri joined him. “If you’re both ready”—he knew that to say so was pointless, but protocol was protocol—“then let’s get started.”

He pressed the randomizer function on his Duel Disk again. Seconds later: “Action Field: _Atlantis, the Legendary City_ selected,” announced the familiar computerized voice. “RSV generators online.”

For some reason, Kiri had perked up immediately upon hearing the name of the chosen Field—and the smirk now spreading across her face was comparable in size to even some of Kaede’s biggest grins.

“Oh, this is gonna be _fun_.”

But what exactly the Blue Sea Duelist meant in saying this was unclear. Her next action, to cast off her shoes and socks—and then, before anyone could protest, her blouse and skirt—offered only more confusion, even as it revealed a blue-and-sea-green two-piece swimsuit she’d been wearing underneath. The unexpected change in wardrobe proved only a temporary distraction, however; the Solid Vision had just started to terraform the park’s surrounding greenery for the second time today.

The scattering of ducks and waterfowl that had been skimming the pond’s surface took off with a series of startled quacks and honks as the water suddenly began rising out from under them, as though it was being filled by dozens of hoses from underneath. Within seconds it had crested the banks. Seconds after that, it was lapping at Kiri’s toes; Jong was eyeing the still-rising water apprehensively, unsure as to whether she should make for higher ground.

Yet Kiri remained where she stood, even as the water now rose above her knees without even pausing. She’d banded up her clothes into a roll around her flops by now, and tossed them to a startled-looking Kiko. The rest of the group, and a few newcomers and bystanders in the distance, were already scrambling for dry ground, Roşu in the lead. She secured her Deck into its slot within her Duel Disk, grinning in anticipation—

—and then, as the water began to rise toward her hips, Kiri raised the device to her mouth.

 **“Aqua Sparkle Voice!”** she cried out. **“Blue Sea Makeup!”**

Yū frowned. “Aqua what now?” But any further questions he had were instantly snuffed out moments later; he felt his jaw drop in shock at what was happening to Kiri.

Thousands of tiny bubbles had appeared on the girl’s skin, as if she’d just emerged from a very soapy bath—indeed, Yū was ready to take them as actual soapsuds until he noticed that each of them seemed to be giving off a very faint glow. Now these bubbles were racing along Kiri’s body, arms, and submerged legs, before finally covering her head inside the shining film of foam—

Then, as quickly as they’d appeared, the shimmering bubbles now disappeared—and a number of awed gasps rose from the sidelines: Kiri’s body—now up to the breast in the still-rising water—had become much more shiny and sleek in their wake; her skin was catching the sun as though it had been freshly waxed. A circular, grayish-blue breastplate had materialized over the top of Kiri’s swimsuit, while a simple tiara and gauntlets of a similar color now encircled her forehead and forearms—

But the most bizarre sight came when the Blue Sea Duelist dove headfirst into the churning water. Yū, expecting to see the girl’s bare feet as she slid into the water, suddenly felt his eyes strain at their sockets at the blue, shimmering fluked tail, perhaps half as long again as Kiri’s legs, that had appeared instead—

Some faraway part of his brain was putting it all together—somehow, some way, Kiri had turned into—

“A mermaid?!”

As if Jong’s exclamation had been a signal, the transformed Duelist broke the surface of the water, revealing herself in full. The tail had added a good two feet to her body length, and was as wide at its flukes as Kiri was broad at the shoulders. Droplets of water, both on her skin and in the air, dazzled in the bright sunlight.

“Sea Angel!” Kaede and Kiko had spoken in tandem, each as excited and awestruck as the other. Roşu’s eyebrows had arched as high as they could possibly go. Yūrei looked even more sideswiped at the transformation than how Yū imagined himself.

So shocked was Yū, in fact, that he’d completely forgotten about the water now covering the Dueling site. A massive wave had erupted from the exact center—a veritable sphere of expanding water—and by the time he realized he had no time to dodge it, it had engulfed him, Jong, Kurokōri, and everyone else within sight.

He spluttered and flailed about, having been brought back to his senses. “Aw, _jeez_ that’s cold!” he shouted—

—and then he blinked as what he just said caught up with him. “Wait—how am I talking underwater?!” he asked nobody in particular, watching the bubbles float up from his mouth and feeling utterly lost as to how this was happening.

“It must be part of the Action Field,” said Kurokōri, floating beside him. The Xyz Duelist looked marginally less confused than everyone else at the change of scenery, though all the more shocked for it. “The water’s just another hologram; that’s why we can breathe it. Because it’s light made solid, it’s programmed to feel like water, so anyone can swim in it—but because it isn’t _really_ water, we can’t drown in it, or even get wet in it.”

Yū was only half listening—he had only just now noticed the full extent of the Action Field he’d activated. The grassy ground below them had vanished completely, replaced by a ruined metropolis of roughly hewn stone—submerged at least a hundred feet beneath the surface of the water. The passage of untold centuries had covered the sunken city in all manner of coral and plant life, reducing its population to so many fish, and the kids now suspended above its depths.

Alone of everyone present, Kiri was swimming in a lazy breaststroke, taking in her newfound surroundings with gusto. “Pretty cool, huh?” she called out, throwing her arms wide to display her mermaid body in full. “Everyone at the Blue Sea Duel School can do it, too!”

No one else appeared to have heard her; they were too busy adjusting to the artificial ocean around them. Kaede was doing a frenzied doggy-paddle to the nearest dry land she could find, her dress blooming every which way with every splash she made. Kiko, wisely, had made it to shore ahead of her, Yūrei in tow, and they now both sat either side of Roşu. She was cradling her false hand carefully as though worried that some of the water—holographic or otherwise—had gotten into its inner workings, while Yūrei was shaking his spiked, slicked hair back and forth so violently that the Romanian had stepped back as if worried that a gelled-up strand would rip right through his blazer.

Jong, for her part, had recovered quickly—enough so that Yū suspected that her time at LDS, and perhaps even before that in Korea, had given her some experience in navigating Fields that affected a Duelist’s movement. But he still couldn’t help but think that Jong was much less suited to Dueling in the water than Kiri was right now—he suspected the Blue Sea Duelist had even been counting on an aquatic Action Field to better show off her skillset. Why else, he reasoned, would she be wearing a swimsuit under her clothes in the first place?

Kurokōri, meanwhile, was wild-eyed in shocked realization. “It’s a _costume_ —like Kiri’s wearing a shell of hard-light around herself,” he muttered. “There must be a program somewhere in her Duel Disk that lets her access it whenever she wants. That means what she was saying earlier must have been a voice command—it let her activate that costume specifically for this Duel.”

He nodded approvingly. “This is _new_. I _like_ new.”

“They didn’t have this level of technology in Heartland?” Yū wondered.

“Not to this extent, no. Which is a shame—I think being able to wear Solid Vision like that would’ve helped us a lot during the invasion,” said the Xyz Duelist.

Yū bit his lip, unsure what to say to that. “It’s … you’re talking about it like it’s battle armor,” he eventually settled on. “You overheard enough of what she was saying when she and those other girls got here—this mermaid thing must be part of her Dueling style. It’s a form of entertainment to her. We have a lot of Duelists like that in this town.”

“Oh, I get you,” Kurokōri replied. “But I’m also thinking she didn’t turn into a mermaid just to strut her stuff, either.” He threw out his arms. “Look at where we are—an underwater environment. If you looked at this from a tactical standpoint like I am right now, you’d have realized by now that Kiri’s costume can let her move through all this water to find Action Cards—and much more quickly than Jong ever could.”

He sniffed. “The Duel hasn’t started, and she’s already got the edge here,” he said with an air of finality.

* * *

Kiri had heard. “You’re darned _right_ I’ve got the edge!” she grinned, twirling in the water. “We at Blue Sea are all about WATER monsters—from the smallest of fishes to the biggest of sea serpents! No other Duel School in all of Japan knows them like we do—and we don’t care what your Leo Duel School has to say about _that_ , Miss Jong!” she hollered at the Korean.

As if to emphasize her boast, she brought her left arm into a classic Dueling position. The Duel Disk attached to it now projected its chevron blade with a mechanical hiss, its edges glinting with the bright green of sea glass.

“You _should_ care.” Jong had managed to work herself into an upright position, and now floated a few meters above the coral-covered city square as she activated her own Duel Disk, causing a light blue blade to lance along her own left forearm. “I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I say my Deck is unlike anything you’ve ever faced.”

She began to mirror Kiri’s stance. “Maybe if you’re good enough to last long enough, you’ll find out why that is. Until then … _Gaja! Gyeoltu!_ ” she barked in Korean, bringing her Duel Disk to her breast in some kind of salute.

Then, in a flash, five cards had appeared in both girls’ hands. **_“DUEL!”_**

As fresh Life Point counters appeared above the combatants’ heads, a thousand points of light splintered above them, scattering to the farthest reaches of the Action Field. But for once, this dazzling spectacle had been eclipsed: Kiri had wasted no time in darting above Jong as though she’d just been shot from a crossbow, and began to swim in a wide arc around the field at breakneck speed.

“What the—what’s going on here?” Yū asked, half to himself in his own amazement.

“She’s marking.” Kurokōri had spoken so quickly that the LDS student had turned round at him, confused. “Trying to find out where each of those Action Cards landed, and memorize their positions so she can use them later on.”

“Not what I was getting at,” said Yū, pointing frantically at where the Blue Sea Duelist had once been. “Look at how fast she’s swimming! The human body can’t reach those kinds of speeds in the water—not even in a costume like what she’s wearing! It’s _anatomically impossible_!”

A bluish blur shot past him, so close that he could feel the wake brush his face. “Trade secret!” sang Kiri. “Well—not really. Maybe I’ll tell Jong after she tells me what’s so super-secret about her Deck!” she giggled. It was plain to see this girl, perhaps more at home in the water than she was on dry land, was having a blast already.

Jong, however, kept her face even, and her hand close to her breast as she acted. “Then we’ll all just have to be patient,” she said, plucking a trio of cards out of her hand. “Three cards face-down. Turn end!”

One—two—three cards appeared in front of her, then disappeared with barely a noise or a ripple.

Kiri scoffed at the sight. “Is that all you can do? Is your hand bad enough that you can’t even Summon a single monster? Or,” she added, smirking a little, “are you just that worried about making sure your Deck stays a secret?”

Jong said nothing. “Oh well—no matter,” shrugged the Blue Sea Duelist. “If you’re going to be defensive about it, I’ll just have to _crack_ that defense. My turn!”

She drew her card, slicing it through the water as if it had the thinness of a knife. Kiri’s eyes locked on it—and she grinned. “ _Perfect_. I’ll start by playing the Field Spell: _Forgotten Capital Lemuria_!”

The ground beneath her exploded—there was no better word for it—sending clouds of mud and foam billowing forth in the water. Kiri let the shockwave carry her, bobbing like a cork on the expanding mass of bubbles until it catapulted her into the air. At the apex of her jump, some ten, fifteen feet above the surface, she twisted gracefully against the newest addition to the holographic surroundings: a veritable city of gleaming marble and polished tile, dotted with verdant gardens that hung from its heights—before diving back into the water with scarcely a splash.

Yū couldn’t help it—he clapped. He could appreciate a good show as much as anyone. Nor was he alone: Kaede and Kiko were grinning excitedly. It was hard to tell which of the girls was more starry-eyed.

“Trap Card, open: _Burgesstoma Marrella_!” Jong called out just then; a moment later, the middle card of the trio she’d Set had revealed itself. “By activating this card, I can send a Trap Card to my Graveyard!” Which was exactly what she did a moment after that, ejecting a card from her Duel Disk and slipping it into a different slot.

Kiri didn’t seem to have heard her—let alone to have cared. “Now, by discarding a WATER-Attribute monster,” she cried, plucking a single card from her hand even as she dived straight down, “I can Special Summon _this_ from my hand! From the depths, I call forth _Mermail – Dinichabyss_!”

She leveled off, bare inches from the bottom of the sea—which exploded again behind her seconds later. It was not as big as before—but the source of the eruption, while far more mobile than an entire city, was huge in its own right. Twelve feet tall, with pea-green skin and silver-blue plate armor, the half-man, half-fish _Dinichabyss_ had surged onto the field, just ahead of its Summoner. The blade of the blood-red spear it brandished at Jong was almost as long as Kiri was tall (Level 7: _ATK 1700_ /DEF 2400).

But almost from the moment it had appeared, the point gauge above the shark-like horror now read **_1900_** / **2600** —causing Kiri to smirk even wider. “ _Lemuria’s_ effect gives every WATER-Attribute monster on the field an extra 200 ATK and DEF!” she told Jong.

Yū frowned—had he seen things just now, or had Jong smiled at this, too? But as quickly as he’d thought he’d seen it, the would-be smile was nowhere to be found.

Kiri, for her part, hadn’t picked up on this either—she was too far in her element to be thinking of anything else. “ _Dinichabyss’_ effect lets me add a Level 4 or lower _Mermail_ monster from my Deck to my hand if I’ve Summoned it by using its own conditions!” she explained, swiping the card that had just jutted out from her Deck. “Now, I’ll activate _Lemuria’s_ second effect—for each WATER-Attribute monster I control, those monsters gain 1 Level until the End Phase! Since _Dinichabyss_ is the only such monster on my field, that means it’s now a Level _8_!”

She waited until the point gauge that had just appeared above her monster had changed to reflect this—before suddenly angling her body in a slow ascent. “Now I’ll Normal Summon the monster _Dinichabyss’_ effect added to my hand! C’mon out, _Mermail – Oceabyss_!”

As if caught by a sudden ray of sunlight, the water beside the Blue Sea Duelist began to shimmer. Then, almost as quickly, it had bloomed into her freshly Summoned monster: a mermaid with long blonde hair, swimming neck-and-neck with Kiri and even more gracefully—this despite the teal-and-grayish-blue armor that plated her translucent fins, almost wing-like in their expanse, and the shining scales that covered her tail (Level 3: _ATK 1100 » **1300**_ /DEF 1900 » **2100** ).

With a quick snap roll that tossed her golden hair, _Oceabyss_ now drifted into Kiri’s wake—directly in between the lumbering _Dinichabyss_ and the Duelist who had Summoned them both. “ _Oceabyss’_ effect!” Kiri hollered. “I can target a monster I control, send it to the Graveyard, and Special Summon _Mermail_ monsters from my Deck whose total Levels are less than or equal to that monster! So I’ll target my _Dinichabyss_ , and Special Summon—”

She was swimming higher and higher, faster and faster … she was going to break the surface for another flip, Yū realized. He held his breath as Kiri shot straight up like a bullet—

At the exact moment she broke the water, _Oceabyss_ lunged forward with a burst of speed. The two mermaids broke the surface with a colossal splash—much too big, Yū thought, to have been caused by just two people. Then, a second later, he noticed the sparkling dust that had been sent in every direction by that splash: the last remnants, he guessed, of Kiri’s _Dinichabyss_. A second after that, he noticed two more figures that hadn’t been there before—more half-fish people like _Oceabyss_ , but more than bulky enough that he instantly knew they were half- _man_ , not half-woman.

“—not one, but two _Mermail – Abysslungs_ in Attack Position!” Kiri howled from above, having slipped back into the water from her aerial, to much applause from Kiko and Kaede. Her freshly Summoned monsters flanked her from slightly behind and either side. Thick black-and-gold shields, strapped to either arm of each _Abysslung_ , cut through the water at speeds that belied their owners’ bulk, while powerfully muscled tails of black scale propelled the mermen at breakneck speed (Level 4: ATK _1200 » **1400**_ /DEF 1800 » **2000** ).

“ _Abysslung’s_ effect!” Kiri was leveling off again, heading straight for Jong. “While it’s on the field, my WATER monsters gain 300 ATK—but more than that, you can’t target any other monsters for attacks!” Both burly fish-men, as if wanting to show off this newfound strength, flexed their arms and clutched their shields even tighter.

Kurokōri’s eyes were wide. “She’s made the perfect defense,” he whispered, close enough for Yū to hear. Possibly he’d seen his confusion, because he added, “Even one _Abysslung_ will redirect any attack Jong will make to any other monster on the field. But since she has _two_ , any attacks are going to be redirected _ad infinitum_.”

Now Yū’s eyes had widened; he understood. “An attack lock … ” Two _Abysslungs_ on the field meant that Jong couldn’t make any attacks at all—not until at least one of those _Abysslungs_ was out of the way. They were still vulnerable to card effects, he knew—and it was also possible that Kiri might attempt an Xyz Summon with them, since their Levels were the same, but with defensive effects that powerful …

He gazed with fascination at Kiri’s field: both _Abysslungs_ , their ATK now at a solid 2000, swimming protectively around Kiri; her _Oceabyss_ , still streaking out in front with a newly altered ATK of 1900. No, he decided; Kiri wasn’t going to Xyz Summon just yet. Those _Abysslungs_ were too crucial for the field she was trying to build up—and besides, Yū had a feeling there was still more to her turn to come.

“Now, I’ll discard the _Mermail – Nereiabyss_ in my hand to activate its effect!” Kiri and her holographic entourage streaked by Jong at speeds that nearly sent the Korean spinning in their wake. “By doing that, I can target a monster I control, destroy 1 other monster in my hand or on my field, and make that target gain the ATK and DEF of the monster I destroyed! So I’ll target my _Oceabyss_ , and destroy the _Mermail – Abysshilde_ in my hand!”

She plucked two cards from her hand. _Oceabyss_ , ahead of her, began to spin round and round like the most graceful drill in the seven seas. Then, without warning, the mermaid monster had peeled off, rushing straight for the surface once more with more speed than ever. It broke the water, splashing digital sea-foam every which way—and from that foam, the shades of two other mermaids—one, a white-haired beauty in sleek, grayish-black armor; the other, a younger, teenage-looking figure in dark red armor with red hair tied back in a ponytail that coiled along her body like a whip (Level 3: ATK 1300/DEF 400)—sprang into view, before dissolving just as quickly into digital dust.

 _Oceabyss_ had leaped a full twenty feet into the air, twisting so nimbly that it seemed as if even the laws of gravity had abandoned their duties to watch the spectacle Kiri was putting on. By the time the mermaid had slipped back into the water, its point gauge now read an impressive **_3200_** / **2500** —by far the strongest Level 3 Yū had seen in his Dueling career.

But Kiri, it seemed, _still_ wasn’t done. “ _Abysshilde’s_ effect activates when it’s sent to the Graveyard for any reason,” she crowed, “and lets me Special Summon another _Mermail_ monster from my hand! So c’mon out and shine, _Mermail – Abyssdine_!”

The bubbles that _Oceabyss_ had left behind from its reentry into the water now began to swirl in her wake. From this aquatic tunnel surged yet another mermaid, smaller and younger than any Kiri had yet Summoned (Level 3: _ATK 1000 » 1200 » **1800**_ /DEF 200 » **400** ). In fact, _Abyssdine_ was almost a double for the Blue Sea Duelist herself, down to the pink hair and the slender build, though with a much shorter, stubbier tail.

“ _Abyssdine’s_ effect activates if it’s Special Summoned by a _Mermail_ monster’s effect,” Kiri said, “and lets me revive another Level 3 or lower _Mermail_ monster in my Graveyard! So I’ll bring back the same _Mermail – Abyssgunde_ I discarded to Special Summon _Dinichabyss_ , when I started this turn! C’mon out!”

She put on a surge of speed, streaking through the water like a knifeblade. Yū, having long since given up on wondering how a human being could achieve velocities in water that most couldn’t even achieve on land, watched raptly as still another mermaid joined the veritable flotilla around the Blue Sea Duelist. This one was much more vibrant in color than her companions; _Abyssgunde’s_ fins and tail were a fiery orange, which—combined with the bands of silver-and-black armor encircling her body—gave her the odd appearance of a clownfish charging into battle (Level 3: _ATK 1400 » 1600 » **2200**_ /DEF 800 » **1000** ).

Kiri now had the maximum of five monsters on her field, Yū knew—and every one of them was swimming in formation alongside her. Both _Abysslungs_ had drifted behind and either side of the Blue Sea Duelist, while her three mermaids— _Abyssdine_ , _Oceabyss_ , and _Abyssgunde_ —were left, right, and center of her. Yū had a distinct impression that if he were to see the spectacle from above, this formation would look exactly like the five points of a star.

The LDS Duelist smiled. He knew what was coming next—and almost as if Kiri had read his mind, she and her _Abysslungs_ suddenly peeled off from the pack, leaving the trio of mermaids to surge on ahead.

“And now, Miss Jong,” Kiri grinned, “I’m going to show you just how thoroughly the Blue Sea Duel School has mastered aquatic Dueling! Watch now, as I use my Level 3 _Abyssdine_ , _Oceabyss_ , and _Abyssgunde_ … to _construct the Overlay Network_!”

All three mermaids swam low—inches-from-the-sea-bed low—at speeds faster than anything Yū had seen in the water. They were swimming so quick, in fact, that when they began to turn and twist in time with each other, ascending towards the surface once more, they were nothing so much as faintly glowing streaks of blue light, carving through the water like some enormous drill:

**“O graceful queen! Emerge from the depths, and strike awe into all that oppose your domain!”**

_WHOOSH_.

A kaleidoscopic galaxy of color had bloomed on the surface of the hard-light lake—at the precise moment all three blue streaks of mermaids had broken the water. But in the enormous column of sea foam this had formed, those streaks of mermaids were nowhere to be seen—nowhere, that is, save for the trio of blue lights rising higher and higher into the air, flirting with the topmost heights of the water-flower caused by Kiri’s Summon.

Then that column was dispelled, retreating back into the water from whence it came. In its place was a graceful figure soaring a full dozen feet into the air—and rising higher still in defiance of all laws of gravity—

 **“Xyz Summon!”** Kiri chanted. **“Rise up! Rank 3! _Mermail – Abysstrite_!”**

Yū felt his breath catch in his throat in spite of himself; _Abysstrite_ was one of the most stunningly beautiful monsters he’d ever seen. Even from fifteen, twenty feet above him, he could make out the vivid purple of the mermaid’s curly hair, and the thin lines of deep, pure gold that curved along its equally violet armor (Rank 3: _ATK 1600 » 1800 » **2400**_ /DEF 2800 » **3000** /ORU 3). Droplets of water, caught in the sun’s rays, dripped off her dark gray tail like diamonds made liquid, making it appear as though she was surrounded by her own personal star-filled sky.

Kiko and Kaede looked as though they had quite a few shining stars of their own filling their eyes; so entranced with Kiri’s newest monster were they that nothing else seemed to register in their minds. It even seemed to Yū as though _Abysstrite_ welcomed the attention; the Duel Monster had hit the water with barely a ripple, and now twisted lazily in the water, letting the sun reflect off her glistening skin. Both burly _Abysslungs_ swam around _Abysstrite_ like bodyguards—and in almost as tight of a circle as the trio of Overlay Units that orbited her.

“That’s three monsters against three face-down cards,” Kiri snickered, looking at Jong upside down. “And because of my _Abysstrite_ , they still won’t do any good against you, Jong.” She gestured to her monster. “Her effect lets me detach an Overlay Unit any time one of my _Mermails_ would be targeted by a card effect, and forces that effect to target her instead! Which means my _Abysslungs_ are safe, and you still won’t be able to attack me.

“And it gets better.” Kiri swam into an upright position. “Because Kurokōri was right about what I was doing—I spent the first few moments of our Duel marking where each and every Action Card landed when this field was activated. So I know exactly what’s where—and I know exactly where to swim to get exactly the card I need.” She smirked. “As far as you’re concerned, Jong, I’m as good as invincible—which means this Duel’s as good as mine!”

She spared enough time for one last twirl below her monsters—and then she was all business. “So—Battle Phase!” she crowed, stabbing out with her finger at Jong. “ _Mermail Abysslung!_ Attack Jong’s Life Points directly!”

Scarcely had the last word fallen from her lips when the _Abysslung_ to Kiri’s left charged forward like a cannonball, its shield-gauntlets hefted in a ramming pose—

Yū wasn’t quite sure what happened next. All he could tell was that one moment, Jong had activated some kind of Trap. At the same time, _Abysslung_ had lifted one of its muscled arms to give the Korean Duelist a devastating right hook. The next moment, that right hook had lashed out—only to stop a few inches from his defenseless enemy. But the punch had generated a compression wave intense enough to send Jong skidding back a few meters, gritting her teeth. Her Life Points had dipped to 3400, and she was bloodied from the force that that water had exerted on her, but she was still standing—

 _Wait_. Yū checked the gauge again. _3400?!_

Kiri had noticed, too—but was much more vocal in her confusion. “What the—?” Her mouth worked soundlessly for a moment, making her look like more of a fish than her mermaid costume would normally have allowed. “But—what happened to my direct attack?!” she finally spluttered. “You should only have 2000 Life Points after that hit!”

Jong’s only response to this was to smile—which only made Kiri grit her teeth. “It must’ve been one of those cards you Set on your first turn,” the Blue Sea Duelist said—but her consternation didn’t last long. “That’s only good once, though—and I’ve still got more than enough firepower to finish you off this turn. Go, _Abysslung_!” she ordered, and the hulking merman to her right lunged forward, drawing back for another punch—

But again, the monster seemed to throw that punch too early, stopping scant inches from Jong’s nose. Again, the shockwave of water expanded, buffeting the Korean, sending her hair flying backward and sending her LP gauge to 2800—

Yū bit his lip—there it was again. _What's going on here?_ He decided to check the replay on his Duel Disk—slow motion, he decided, just to be sure.

* * *

Nearby, Maki Kiko was watching the sudden turn of events with a calculating look on her face. Her left hand was fidgeting with the exposed innards of her fake right hand at top speed, and she was thinking out loud.

“That’s another six hundred Life Points lost,” she was heard to mutter, “where it should’ve been two thousand … ” She blinked in sudden realization. “Miss Jong must have Summoned something right before Kiri attacked,” she blurted out. “Something with exactly 1400 ATK! There’s no other way she could’ve altered that battle damage!”

Water is an excellent conductor of sound; it travels faster and for longer distances than it otherwise would in air. Not that the human ear can tell; it is made to hear in air, rather than water, and so cannot clearly pick up noises underwater. However, since most of the Solid Vision composing the Duel arena was only _mimicking_ water, and not actually water at all, it meant that Jong heard every word Kiko had spoken—even from the distance between them.

“You’re a quick study,” she said, without turning round to look at Kiko. “Most Duelists need more than one turn to figure out my Deck. By then,” she glanced at Kiri, still smiling softly, “it’s usually too late.”

The Korean tapped at her Duel Disk. “Here’s what did it—the Trap Card: _Burgesstoma Pikaia_ ,” she explained. “When I activate this card, I can discard 1 _Burgesstoma_ card, and then draw two more cards.” She displayed them in her hand for a brief moment, before adding them to the one that remained in her hand.

Kiri only looked more dazed at this revelation than before. “ … I’m still not getting it,” she said. “How’d that stop both my _Abysslungs_ from pounding you into next week?!”

Jong’s smile grew wider. “Because my _Burgesstoma_ Trap Cards have a _second_ effect,” she replied. “If they’re in my Graveyard when a Trap is activated—no matter whose Trap it is—then I can Special Summon them to my field as Normal Monsters!”

* * *

“Say what?!”

It was hard to tell if Kaede or Kiko was the more shocked of the two. Both girls looked as though each _Abysslung_ on the field had punched _them_ instead. Yūrei had rounded on Roşu, incredulous. The Romanian had the faintest of smirks lining his lips—the first real emotion he’d shown today.

Kurokōri, however, had figured it out first, and snapped his fingers when he did. “Trap monsters,” he mused out loud. “Cards that count as either monsters or Trap Cards. I’ve even heard of some that can do both.” He nodded in apparent approval. “Reminds me a bit of Yūto’s Deck.”

But Yū was only half listening at this point; he’d been marginally slower to the punch than Kurokōri, owing to the instant replay he’d been analyzing. Kiko had only confirmed what he’d suspected in the first place: that Miss Jong had quickly Summoned a monster to protect her Life Points from Kiri’s far superior field.

The trouble had been finding out what exactly had been Summoned and how. Yū already knew that _Burgesstoma Marrella_ had sent a Trap Card from Jong’s Deck to the Graveyard—one _Burgesstoma Dinomischus_ , according to the replay—and then had been sent to the Graveyard itself after it had resolved. That made two Trap Cards—and then, there had been _Burgesstoma Pikaia_. When that was activated, the Summoning conditions for the Traps that were already in Jong’s Graveyard had been fulfilled, and she’d then Special Summoned them both in Attack Position (Level 2: ATK 1200 » **1400** /DEF 0 » **200** ). From there, they’d been treated as Normal Monsters, as Jong had said—but what she _hadn’t_ said was that they were also WATER-Attribute monsters as well, which meant that their ATK and DEF had been boosted by Kiri’s own Field Spell.

 _Not bad_ , Yū thought to himself. _Not bad at all_.

* * *

Kiri blinked, completely thrown out of character. “So all of these … _Burga_ -whatever cards … they can become monsters, too?”

“ _Maj-a_ ,” Jong nodded, looking exceptionally pleased with how she’d avoided certain defeat. “What’s more, they become completely immune to monster effects when they’re Special Summoned by their own procedure. _Soljighi malhaeseo, geu suchiida_ ,” she shrugged as Kiri gawked at this news. “It would have meant that they’d had the same ATK as your _Abysslungs_ when they attacked me—which would’ve meant they’d have been destroyed along with my _Burgesstomas_. That power boost they grant doesn’t just affect _your_ monsters, after all.”

The Blue Sea Duelist cringed at the thought of _that_ mental image, and she immediately resolved to never attack so quickly again. “There is another tradeoff,” Jong went on. “I have to banish my _Burgesstomas_ if they ever leave the field as monsters. But, well … that’s not a problem for me,” she smiled. “I have ways around _that_ , too.”

But several questions still lingered within Kiri’s mind, and she wasn’t sure which of them she wanted answered first. “This is one of the _weirdest_ Decks I’ve ever Dueled against,” she murmured to herself—it seemed as though all of Miss Jong’s boasting hadn’t just been talk.

Then, loudly enough that Jong could hear, “Why didn’t I see them?”

“Hm?”

“I should’ve seen at least a _hint_ of a monster if one was Special Summoned,” Kiri said, “even for a _second_. I had my eye on you the whole time, and I didn’t see any monsters at all. Not one.” She crossed her arms. “Why?”

Jong smiled again, wider than ever, and enough that the Mermaid Duelist could see a hint of perfect teeth behind the Korean’s lips. “And there it is. That’s what sets me apart from you, Kiri,” she said pleasantly. “For a Duelist who likes the sea so much, I thought you’d be just as appreciative of its _history_ as much as its mystique and mythology.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Kiri’s reply was laced with a touch of defiance.

“My _Burgesstoma_ Deck is based on some of the oldest animals on the planet,” Jong smirked. “They lived, thrived, and died out hundreds of millions of years before our species was advanced enough to even _believe_ in things like myths and gods. They were incredibly small, too—even the apex predator of those primeval times wasn’t much bigger than a skateboard. Most of the rest were almost impossible to see—unless they were _right before your eyes_.”

The way she’d emphasized those words made Kiri think of what her twin _Abysslungs_ had done in the midst of their attack: they’d stopped their fists bare inches from the Korean—as if something had been blocking their way.

She shivered. _I definitely underestimated this girl_ , she thought. _I can’t let her throw me off like that again_.

In time, the more analytical parts of her brain had reasserted themselves, and she soon realized that Miss Jong had one more Set card on her field. Was it another one of those _Burgesstoma Traps?_ Kiri wondered. There were still more of them in her Graveyard that she could use to block her final attack—

The Blue Sea Duelist pursed her lips. Or would she save it for when she began her turn, and somehow take the offensive? If that was true, Kiri decided, then the best thing to do would be to widen the advantages she already possessed. The Korean, after all, had Special Summoned her monsters in _Attack_ Position—and as far as Kiri was concerned, that meant she’d made a critical blunder.

There was only one course of action to take—and so: “ _Mermail – Abysstrite_!” Kiri crowed. “Attack Miss Jong directly! **_Dancing Riptide Slice!_** ”

At once, the mermaid-monster shot for Jong like a bullet from a gun. She drilled through the water at a speed that rivaled most cars, missing the Korean by narrow inches—but deliberately; the wake she’d generated buffeted Jong as though she’d been caught in a hurricane. She was only just able to remain upright, but _Abysstrite’s_ momentum spun her round in a full circle—and by the time she’d recovered, the mermaid was already speeding for her again—

 _WHOOSH_. Jong was flipped upside down by the sheer current, unable to react in time—and then once more, twice more, again and again, _Abysstrite_ continued to shear through the hard-light ocean, carrying scores of Action Cards in her wake, until it looked as if Jong was nothing more than a squirming speck inside a cage of twisting water.

While this was happening, Kiri took off on a tear of her own, swimming through the digital sea at breakneck speed until she saw what she was looking for: a gleam of pure white, winking at her from underneath one of the pillars that formed the _Atlantis_ Field Spell. She snaked through them, wholly in her element, and even loop-the-looped around her final destination before she snatched the card up in her hands, and carved upwards until she broke the surface with a splash. Kiri allowed herself a crucial second to strike a pose for her audience—and then, all too quickly, she was back in the water, leveling off against the ground and back to her original position.

By now, _Abysstrite_ had finished with Jong; the LP gauge above the Korean Duelist had drained to a dangerous 400, and she looked shaken by the beating she’d been given. Perhaps it had taken Kiri’s final attack to realize her own error; in any case, Jong pushed off from the ocean floor and clambered to solid ground, breathing deeply.

 _That’ll teach you to get cocky around me_ , Kiri thought smugly, before playing her last card. “Action Magic: _Quick Guard!_ ” she shouted, revealing it to Jong with a smirk. “With this, I can target any Attack Position monster on the field, and switch it to face-up Defense Position! I target my _Abysstrite_!”

She felt her hair whirl in the water—the only sign that her monster had swum past her, breaking the surface one last time for one last eye-popping aerial—and then whirling back to Kiri’s side with nary a sound, putting as much of her tail as she could between her and Miss Jong.

Between _Abysstrite_ and her pair of _Abysslungs_ , Kiri had never felt safer. “Turn end,” she smirked at Jong, throwing in a cheeky wink for good measure.

* * *

One of the things Yū appreciated about _Duel Monsters_ was that sometimes it wasn’t about Summoning one monster that could change the course of the game—it was about Summoning multiple monsters that cooperated with each other, their effects combining to form an insurmountable, nigh-unbreakable field in ways no physical strength could. And the way Kiri had ended her turn was one of the finest examples of such an ending board he’d seen in a while.

It was something he sadly wished he could see more often. The game wasn’t called _Duel **Monster**_ , after all.

Kurokōri apparently shared his thoughts. “That’s a pretty solid wall Kiri’s got there,” he remarked, staring intently at all 3000 DEF of _Abysstrite_ , and the twin 2000-ATK _Abysslungs_ that flanked her defiantly. “No matter how long I look, I can’t think of any way an Xyz Duelist can break through that with just four cards—and I’m counting the one Jong is about to draw next turn. It’d take a level of card draw and hand advantage that no one card in the game has.”

“Let’s say Jong can do it, though,” Yū replied. Biased he might sound, but Jong was a fellow LDS student, and he wanted her to win as any good classmate would. “What’s the weak link in the chain Kiri’s put together?”

Kurokōri thought. “It sounds weird to say it,” he eventually said, “but I think it might be _Abysstrite_. Remember that both of her _Abysslungs’_ effects are continuous. Which means there’s no way to get around them, short of actually negating their effects—but _Abysstrite’s_ effect to focus those card effects on herself is reliant on how many Overlay Units she has. So if Jong focuses on depleting those Units, like Kaede tried to do with Kiko’s monster in their Duel, she might just have a chance.”

“We’ll know soon enough.” Yū motioned back to the Duel—Jong had just drawn her card. _Here we go …_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Hey everyone. ThunderingWaterWitch here. First of all, thank you all so much for reading this chapter of this fanfic collab. While I did lose a close family relative in late 2020, I'm just glad they're resting peacefully and staying with their beloved partner they've lost 8 years prior. It took me a long while to cope with what happened, but with every day passing by, I'm looking more hopeful for the future and what 2021 has in store for me, my friends, my family, and everyone around me.
> 
> The next chapter will come around soon ... maybe sooner than expected. May 2021 be a good year for us all. - TWW


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